


Sugar and Lotus

by pandexual



Series: Sugar and Lotus [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ashe is old, Canon Typical Violence, Echo isnt a sexy tiddy robot, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Torture, Olivia Colomar - Freeform, Rating May Change, Team Talon (Overwatch), Vishkar Corporation, in which satya realizes shes a puppet and sombra is chaotic good, nonlinear storytelling, slight Google Translated Spanish, vishkar gets taken down by two dumb ladies in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-03-30 14:52:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 25,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13953957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandexual/pseuds/pandexual
Summary: “Are you with Overwatch?”Sombra laughed, sharp and short. “No, no. And I’m not with Talon either, kay? I’ll be in touch.” And just as she had appeared, with a wave of her fingers the hacker had disappeared in a techy shimmer of purple.The only solid proof that Satya hadn’t dreamed the encounter was the bright lipstick stain on her coffee mug and the unregistered number that had appeared in her personal phone.—In which Sombra opens the eyes of a puppet, and chaos and love ensues.





	1. 12/24/2077 22:45

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first serious writing in years. Like, I know I have writing on this account already but now I have, like, a college education and standards.
> 
> That said, please enjoy my good good Overwatch fanfiction.

It was a late night to be still working at the office, especially at this time of year. Frost crawled up the corners of the window overseeing the perfect hard-light city of Utopaea, and Satya Vaswani cursed to herself as she poured a mug of coffee for herself in the office’s break room. She had forgone a second layer of clothing when she had set off that morning, simply opting to wear her white and navy uniform that day. The weather evidently didn’t hold, and already she was dreading the trip home after work. Perhaps she would stay overnight and return in the morning in order to escape the cold, it wasn’t unheard of.

Jacket or not, the mug in her hands was a warm companion on the way back to her personal office space.

“Oh- Evening, Ms. Vaswani! Working late?”

Satya turned to greet what looked to be an intern on their way out for the night. They were already bundled in a nice wool coat and scarf for whatever travel may face them. “That’s correct. I don’t see any reason not to, even with the holidays.”

“...I see.” Their face was only sad for a moment before they masked it politely. “Work hard, then! And, ah, Merry Christmas.”

“To you as well.”

Satya’s space had it’s own private room, which she was perfectly satisfied with and happy to occupy. The view of the city below was always perfect, and the room itself was a perfect combination of large enough and not too lonely.

Not that Satya was even the type to get lonely.

Her desk woke under the touch of her artificial fingertips, the matching technology making the porcelain emit a soft hum and glow a pleasant cyan. Lines of a similar color ran from the desk to various technologies around the room, one of which was a lamp to properly illuminate the space.

It was perfect, as always.

Except.

It wasn’t.

It took Satya a moment to realize what was wrong, but when she did it was so painstakingly obvious. Nothing in the whole building could ever make the annoying, whining, _twang_  of whatever was pinging around in her office. She pinpointed the source after a minute, only to be even more puzzled by the situation.

Purple was not their color, but here this advanced device was, pulsing away in the far corner of the room. Satya picked up the thing in her hands and looked it over, perplexed by the unfamiliar technology. It was of a dark metal, triangular and fitting in both of her palms despite its light weight. Whatever the reason this thing had to be here, it certainly wasn’t Vishkar tech.

The reason was made quite obvious soon enough as it seemingly produced a woman out of thin air into Satya’s arms. Her attire matched the device from the metallic gray jacket up to the bright purple highlights in her hair. The woman seemed to be just as surprised to see the shocked face of Satya, but a quick once-over made the woman smile and put some appropriate distance between them. She extended a manicured hand towards Satya as she spoke.

“Well, this isn’t how I thought this meeting would go at all, but I’ll just have to roll with it, won’t I? The name’s Sombra.”

Satya’s shock dissolved into a confused panic at the realization that this Sombra was an intruder, and she did not take the hand. “You have five seconds to tell me why you’re here, or-“

“Or you’ll press that pretty little button under your desk that calls security, yeah?” Sombra smiled casual as afternoon tea as she pulled out a pistol and aimed it between Satya’s eyes. “By the time they get here, you’ll be dead and I’ll be gone. But who’s to say anyone’s working security this late on _Christmas Eve_?”

The architect didn’t move, not because she wasn’t afraid, but because she was smart. One false move would paint this pristine white interior red. “I won’t, then. Better to get your money while everyone’s out before they notice, is that it?”

The surprised peal of laughter that left Sombra’s lips told her that wasn’t it at all.

“Oh, no, I’m not in it for the money.” Sombra circled Satya then, putting her gun down and grabbing the forgotten mug of coffee to steal a sip. She made a face at doing so. “No sugar? Oh Satya, you’re worse off than I thought.”

Satya paled. “I didn’t tell you my name.”

“It’s on your door, isn’t it? And even if I didn’t read the nice little plaque there, you have quite the reputation. Which is why, actually, I’m here for your help.” Sombra’s sharp gaze was unwavering.

“Why would I help you?”

“You, really, are the best person for me to ask. The best Architech around, and yet all of your company’s dirty deeds are done right under your nose.”

Satya blinked before poking a finger in her direction. “You know _nothing_ of Vishkar.”

Sombra hopped onto Satya’s desk in order to sit on it. Her dark jacket bunched up behind her and disrupted a few papers, making Satya wrinkle her nose in distaste. “I know that they plucked your little orphan butt off the streets because they saw how useful you could be, and your belief in benefiting the greater good was exploited so you could be a clueless advocate for their cause. Sound about right?”

She picked some dirt from under one nail and continued as she saw Satya just staring back, slack jawed.

“I’ll take your silence as a yes. Do you _also_ know that they’re using you as a scapegoat for if any of their dirty deeds were to slip to the public?” And here Satya looked even more shocked.

“I’ll take that as a no. So let me prove to you that they’re scammers,” and here she began to project images, documents, emails, surveillance videos and more in thin air with just a wave of her hand. “Liars, criminals. Capitalist scum sucking the life out of every single low class community on the globe.”

Sombra left the evidence up for Satya to process. There was so much, from attaining illegitimate building permits to chalking bodies turning up as suicides. From hacking and espionage and blatantly exploiting the poor to. Tech and arms dealings with Talon. THE Talon. It all was almost too much to believe.

Satya spoke as her mind turned and considered the options. “What do I gain from this?” she asked slowly. “Or, if you really want me to trust you. What do you get out of this?”

A hum of thought sounded in Sombra’s throat. “You, my friend, get immunity. Like I said, you’re perfect for them if things start to slip. You don’t react well under pressure and when you’re unprepared, the truth doesn’t sound so great.” The woman highlighted some documents, which looked to be forged emails and letters incriminating Satya.

“So help me take them down. You’ll get full rights to the company’s brand and its funds and can actually turn it into something that does good for once. I, well. All you need to know is that I do things for my personal benefit, but if it helps you sleep at night you can tell yourself that I pitied you and couldn’t stand by and watch.”

“And that’s why you’re not going to the press with this.”

Sombra worked her tongue inside her mouth before taking another swig of Satya’s coffee. “It’s messy. I don’t know who to trust over there and I’d rather get who I know needs to be got.”

Satya made a dissatisfied noise. “How do I know you’re not setting me up?”

“So many questions. If my research doesn’t prove it to you, I’ll give you a present.” Sombra pushed off the desk then, waving a USB device in Satya’s face. “This is baby malware that I’m sure someone like you can handle. Plug it in to a computer that already has some access to Vishkar’s data base, and you can do your own research. This little thing’ll worm the both of us through their firewall. I may be good, but breaking in remotely is going to leave a trace.”

Her hand graced over the silky seam of Satya’s dress before she found what she needed, slipping the device into the other woman’s pocket with a little pat. She then handed Satya her coffee mug and pulled away entirely. “Just think it over, kay?”

Satya flushed from the interaction. “Wait- One more question.”

An exasperated sigh. “Yes?”

“Are you with Overwatch?”

Sombra laughed, sharp and short. “No, no. And I’m not with Talon either, kay? I work for myself. I’ll be in touch.” And just as she had appeared, with a wave of her fingers the hacker had disappeared in a techy shimmer of purple.

The only solid proof that Satya hadn’t dreamed the encounter was the bright lipstick stain on her coffee mug, the device, and the unregistered number that had appeared in her personal phone.


	2. 12/26/2077 12:00

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit: this was a two part UPDATE, with ch 2 being the first part and ch 3 being the second part

What Satya needed right now was to decompress and assess all the information that had been shoved in her face. What was true? What was a lie? What was a little of both, and how could she trust the means of which would get her what she needed to know?

Technology didn’t come first. For once in her life, the architect had to trust her own mind and experiences before she could let it be influenced by Sombra’s “research.”

So she paced, endlessly back in forth in the quaint little apartment she owned in Utopaea. And remembered.

There was her childhood in Hyderabad. She could never forget the chaotic dirt of the streets and her parents struggling to feed her so much that they forgot to feed themselves. Or how she would draw so many overcomplicated yet flawless geometric shapes in dirt or with chalk that someone eventually noticed.

And the academy. Where under a little guidance and order, Satya shot to the top of her class. Even better came the discovery that her understanding of hard-light physics translated excellently into practice. Her social life was neglected in favor of succeeding for the company.

And then there was her adulthood, officially marked by the loss of her arm, where she’s earned her place now. Yes, she was given a place to live and a nice salary, but it was under the condition of her employment.

Surely, Vishkar employed her because she had been pitied. Because everyone living in squalor deserved a shot at success.

But, suppose that wasn’t the case. Suppose Satya let herself believe that Vishkar only kept her around for the worst case scenario, and she was only employed for as long as she was useful. Or an adequate puppet, at the very least. That once she fulfilled her duty, or was successfully blamed for supposed corruption, she would be dealt with. In this scenario, she was nothing more than a tool, and would be discarded once she was no longer useful.

With a lurch of her stomach Satya realized that in all of her years the company has never once talked to her about its retirement plan.

Satya grabbed her personal laptop and turned it on.


	3. 12/27/2077 14:15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i posted two chapters, make sure you read chapter 2 first!

“I could give this number to the authorities, you know.” Even in the comfort of her own home, Satya felt deeply uncomfortable talking to this woman over their schemes. She was settled against her living room couch with an earpiece in and a perfect white laptop sat in her lap. It was her day off today, so her hair was gathered in a bun and all she wore was a dark camisole and leggings, soaking in the faint afternoon sunlight filtering through the window.

She had, in fact, done her own research, first from what files her Architech position already gave her and from what files the master device gave access to. She didn’t trust the malware entirely, of course. Satya had checked the source code before running it, and though she wasn’t an expert hacker like Sombra, she could tell this wasn’t an obvious trap.

Doubt still lingered in her mind, but the information was incriminating against her enough to convince her to at least give this hacker a chance to prove herself.

“Please, I’m not stupid,” came the reply laced with faint static. “I’m using a burner. It was manufactured back in the 2030s too, thing’s an absolute brick. If you turned on me, I’d know, toss the thing, and they’d never be able to trace it to me.”

“...Okay. Still, I don’t see the benefit in talking over the phone. Someone could eavesdrop on us.” Satya fidgeted as she opened her laptop, a strip of tape lain over the built-in camera.

“I would rather one of us get caught than both. You really wanna be _seen_ having contact with me?”

“Point made.”

“Anyway, I’m perfectly capable of keeping anyone suspicious off our tail, so don’t you worry about that.”

Satya doubted she wouldn’t keep worrying.

Sombra continued. “I’ve been grabbing all the proof on Vish from the outside, but I’m going to need your help doing some inside snooping. You use that device yet?”

Satya made a hum of acknowledgement as she followed Sombra’s instructions over the phone, gathering missing pieces and details from every corner of Vishkar’s database and exporting it all to a flash drive. The method was outdated, but she was told it was easily disposable so it was much safer than wireless transport.

“By the way, that outfit you’re wearing is super cute.”

Satya’s eyes widened as she glanced around her apartment, eyes searching for Sombra’s telltale purple translocator among her white and blue furniture. “How-“

“Don’t worry, I won’t come popping in this time. I hacked in to the street camera near your window and you left the curtains open,” came the amused reply.

She shut her pretty, translucent drapes after giving said camera the middle finger. Not enough to block outside light but it does the job. “If we are to continue to collaborate, I wish that you would respect my privacy. My office is one thing but I will not allow you to spy on my home,” Satya lectured as she threw a shawl on top of her clothes. Talk about her appearance made her too self conscious in the moment.

“I’ll try my best,” Sombra replied halfheartedly. “But in this line of work, invading privacy is kind of what I do best, so you’ll have to forgive me.”

“Why not just trust that I’m really willing to help you?”

“I trust exactly one other living being on this planet, Satya, and that being is a little betta fish I keep at home. You could turn on me at any moment, linda.”

The petname felt insincere in that moment. “Or I think your plan has some merit and might actually work.”

“Please, I’ve done more than enough research on you to know you prefer to have the odds very much in your favor.”

The architect sighed and rubbed at her temples. “Fine. Don’t trust me. But give me my privacy here, and I won’t abuse it. Deal? I know you like those.”

“Mm. Fine. Deal. On one condition.”

“Your ‘condition’ is that I don’t go behind your back.”

The reply Satya received was akin to a child’s when whining for more time to watch television before bed. “Come oooon. Can’t I have a little fun with my new friend?”

“If you stop calling whatever this is friendship, then yes.”

“ _Fine._ Fine!” Satya could almost hear the hacker facepalm from the other end. “Forgive me for trying to make nice. My condition is that I want to know more about you, though.”

That’s what puzzled Satya, nails pausing at her keyboard. “What could you possibly not know about me?”

“Your favorite food. What you do on the weekends, where you’ve been, your favorite color. Though I can guess that last one. The internet only gives me so much and you’re not a frickin’ machine.” Sombra chuckled dryly. “The non sentient kind.”

The situation was almost laughable. “You’ve dug into the most private files of my history and you want to know _more?_ “ Satya asked with a laugh. “I hardly know anything about you, how is that fair?”

“Mm...” Sombra hummed in thought, quiet for a few moments. “Okay. Tell you what, amiga: we’ll make a game out of it. Fact for fact, eye for an eye. My favorite food is pan dulce. And, just a guess, but I’d say you’re a tea and biscuits kinda gal.”

Well that was a start. “You’re not wrong, but... chocolate lava cake is actually my favorite.”

“You’re serious?” Sombra sounded baffled and it made Satya chuckle proudly. “How naughty of you. We should go get some sometime.”

“Nonsense. The best kind are the ones I make myself.”

“A chef! Double whammy! Oh, the things you’re doing to my poor dessert loving heart, Satya.”

Victory? “If that’s a double whammy, then you owe me one more fact.”

“Nope, not how this game works. I’ll give you another one next time. Be a doll and mail that flash drive and my malware device to the address I’m sending you, yeah? I prefer manilla envelopes, like the ones with the bubble wrap on the inside.”

“I’ll take that as my fact.”

Sombra seemed to sputter from the other end and Satya’s face split into a smirk. Instead of acknowledging it though, she just responded with “Don’t put a return address,” before hanging up. It was actually kind of endearing.

That brought Satya’s train of thought crashing into a brick wall. _Endearing?_ Since when was she the kind of person to think other people cute? Especially another woman? Not to mention their conversation derailed from the job and Satya had found herself thoroughly enjoying it. Maybe, in another world where Sombra wasn’t a notorious hacker and Satya wasn’t pulling her blackmailed fingers out of a corporate mess, they could be actual friends.

The feeling was off-putting, for sure.

She needed some tea and cake.


	4. 01/20/2078 13:00

Despite the fact that they had been collaborating on dismantling Vishkar for quite some time now, Satya hadn’t seen the other woman since that first encounter. The risk was dangerous, she understood that, but.

With all the silly flirting and passes at “friendship” Sombra’s been attempting, Satya couldn’t help but _want_  to see the other woman again.

True, communication had been short this week. It was safer that way and both women had jobs to do. Sombra’s, really, doing whatever the hell it was she needed to do and Satya’s, well.

Satya was back in the office today.

It was simple paperwork and helping work on construction plans for the company. It was better to keep up the façade of being clueless to Vishkar’s nasty doings, but Satya couldn’t help but feel a pit in her stomach at helping them do any kind of work now, just like she’d always done.

She was in the middle of pulling a hard-light scale model of a building from midair when a digital noise sounded behind her and breath ghosted her ear. “Hola.”

Satya dented the model, and with a strained sigh she willed it back out of existence. “ _What_ are you doing here.”

“Mm. Got bored,” Sombra replied with a hum.

Satya turned to reprimand the hacker but saw no one. “Where are you.”

“Right in front of you.” A tap came to Satya’s nose and she wrinkled it. “I’m field testing my camouflage tech and needed some fresh eyes.”

“So you came to my office.”

“Yep! Cameras won’t catch me, pretty crafty, huh?” Satya’s blueprints crinkled and with a soft groan she realized Sombra was sitting on her desk again. “I also am testing the silencers on my translocators cause I thought it would piss you off otherwise.” The sound of an acrylic nail tapping metal sounded, and with a glance Satya could see the purple device tucked hidden away under her desk, a faint light pulsing from the technology.

She cleared her throat as she tried to return to her work. “Yes, well. That’s very thoughtful of you.”

“It is! I figured you were the type to get irked by that kind of thing.”

The architect sighed and gave a nod. “You’d be correct. Why would you keep that here?”

“I’ve got tons all over. Convenience, mostly, and at this point I can go wherever I want with the push of a few buttons. I’ve got a few at home, in the US and in Europe, a ton in Russia, and a handful in India for this job.”

Satya squinted at where Sombra most likely was. “Do you have one of those in my home.”

“...Well, I was thinking of doing it.” Satya squinted harder and Sombra’s voice got defensive. “But I didn’t! Keeping the trust and all that. There’s one in the security office in your building though.”

Satya let her hands rest on the desk. “That’s... not great. But thank you?”

Sombra hummed happily. “There’s more. I caught a pest.”

“A- what do you mean by that?”

“You won’t like it.”

Satya made a dissatisfied noise. “Tell me.”

“Weeelllll, even if my identity is unknown and your execs don’t know anything about me, they still know I, the Sombra collective, exist. I had a run in with a suit, one of yours. He was...” The hacker seemed to dance around the subject. “I caught him bugging places I was frequenting so I had to... take him off the board, so to speak.”

Satya blinked. “You-“

“ _Hospitalized_ him, thank you very much. I disabled the AI in his car long enough to send him careening into a telephone pole.”

Satya spoke slowly as she thought. “Okay... okay. But how would he know where to look if no one knows your likeness?”

“He knew my style. You’re not dumb, you know just as well as him that my tech differs from hard light stuff. Once he knew what to look for, he could find traces of where I’d used my tech.”

“And your malware.”

Sombra hissed softly. “...Yeah. But your place wasn’t one of his hits for placing bugs. I’ve been all over, it most likely went unnoticed. You have nothing to worry about.”

And then a knock sounded at her office door.

Satya shot a look at the space where Sombra occupied before clearing her throat and quickly continuing on her model as if she were hard at work. “Come in.”

“I brought you lunch,” came a familiar male voice, and Satya’s stomach turned to ice as Sanjay Korpal stuck his head into her office.

Still, she had an act to maintain. “Thank you,” she said with a smile that she made sure reached her eyes. She knew it would seem more genuine like that and she tried not to look at where Sombra was too much.

Her relationship with her superior had already been tense since the incident in Rio. It had clued her in that Vishkar was a company that did what had to be done for the sake of the greater good. Now she knew it was really so they could get to the top. And to know that Sanjay was more directly involved? That he was a collaborator with, if not an agent of, the criminal organization that was Talon? It made her sick. If he were to discover she was working behind the company’s back with an infamous hacker collective sitting right under his nose, who knows what he would do? Maybe he already knew and this was to be her last meal.

None of that showed on her face as she pulled the small building from concept into hard light and let it rest on the desk. “I smell Thai food,” she said with a little grin as the man strolled into her space. “What’s the occasion?”

“Well, I’m not just here for a ‘hello,’ sorry to say.” Sanjay sat in the chair across from her desk and handed her a bag of takeout, not having one for himself. He probably already ate by the looks of it. “There’s a big project coming up and I want you to spearhead it.”

Satya’s icy guts melted with relief, and she tried to show excitement. Hopefully this interaction wouldn’t last much longer. “Are you sure? That sounds like a big task for an Architech.”

He nodded with a faint smile. “You’re our best and brightest. There’s no one better for the job, Symmetra.” Sanjay dropped her title just so she would know it would be her name and moniker on the project. She doubted it was an intentional threat but it sure felt like one.

“I’m flattered. I won’t let this go to waste.”

Her superior stood with a polite bow of his head. “I’ll email you the details.”

“Thank you for the opportunity, Sanjay.”

“It was my pleasure.”

And then he was gone. Satya let out a long breath, running her flesh hand through her hair and working a hard light pyramid in the palm of her prosthetic to soothe her nerves.

“Symmetra, huh? You prefer that?”

Her patience was running thin. “It’s more professional.”

“Satya’s prettier, just saying.” The blueprints crinkled again and Satya’s eyes darted back to where the hacker probably sat.

“‘Sombra’ isn’t very pretty.”

“I’m hurt.” Sombra didn’t sound hurt. “It’s supposed to be a vague name, you think I chose ‘shadow’ because it’s pretty?”

Satya hummed and expanded the pyramid of hard light into a dodecahedron. “I suppose not.”

The hot air of the hacker’s breath and a soft hand brushed over her skin again, making her fingers falter. “Even if I did choose a new name, it still wouldn’t be as pretty as yours.” The sound of her translocator activating and the heavy silence after that indicated that Sombra had left after saying that.

Satya threw Sanjay’s food away. She didn’t have an appetite.


	5. 01/20/2078 23:30

“We want a status report on your Architech.”

“My source was right. She knows.”

There was a beat of silence on the other end of the phone as he was implicitly instructed to continue. “I don’t know how or when she found out, but she knows something about us and I don’t think the shadow’s traces were a coincidence.”

“How could you tell?”

“I went to see her today. Her hands were shaking and she wouldn’t quite look me in the eye.”

“Understood. I’ll take care of it.”

“You won’t kill her, right?”

“Not unless absolutely necessary. We will take her in for questioning and we have ways of making her forget. If she has information we intend to get it from her first.”

That made the man sigh. “I understand. Thank you for taking care of it.”

“I’ll give you an update when there is one.”

“And, uh- keep this between us for now? The big guy doesn’t need to know there’s a mess if we can clean it up easy.”

“A spider knows how to keep her mouth shut.”

When Sanjay hung up the phone, he wasn’t sure why their voices had a slight echo during the call, but thought nothing of it.


	6. 01/21/2078 03:45

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P L O T
> 
> sorry for my shitty google translate spanish

“Satya.”

Satya wrinkled her nose in her sleep and turned over the other way on her mattress, nearly swaddled in a blissful nest of plush comfortable blankets.

“ _Por el amor, no tengo tiempo para esto_ \- Get up!“ And then those blankets were being tugged off and Satya was wide awake staring her hacker associate in the face.

“What- It’s the middle of the night!” Satya’s voice was scratchy with sleep and with a squint at her alarm clock she could make out a blaring 3:45 am. She didn’t have enough energy to even bother asking how the hacker got into the apartment.

“Yes, yes, I know, but we- things have been compromised. We gotta go.”

“ _Go?_ ”

“Are you deaf?? Yes. Get dressed, we’re leaving in two minutes.”

“Why?” Satya asked as she slipped out of bed, satin white nightgown spilling down to her knees.

Sombra looked sheepish as Satya crossed the bedroom and made her way towards her desk. “You know how I said I didn’t work for Talon?” Satya paled and spun to face the other woman who put her hands up before Satya could interrupt. “I’m not _loyal_ , but I’ve done freelance missions for them and they trust me. I’ve been hacking their systems and embezzling their funds behind their back.”

That’s. Not much better, but it made Satya relax just a little bit and grab her prosthetic resting on her desk and connected to a charger. “Okay. Why bring this up?”

“Cause I got this.” And Sombra pulled up a recorder with two voices, which sounded like a phone conversation judging by the slight fuzz. One voice was male, and all too familiar, and the other voice was laced with a French accent and chilling to the bone.

[

_“...I’ll take care of it.”_

_“You won’t kill her, right?”_

_“Not unless absolutely necessary...”_

]

Satya felt even worse, now, as she reattached her arm, flexing it a few times and watching as it glowed with the connection. “I. Okay. And you’re sure we have to go now?”

“You’re dealing with the _Widowmaker,_ ” the hacker stressed, grabbing a few things for Satya from around her room and stuffing them into a duffle bag. “She likes to get shit done ASAP.”

Satya flushed, but necessity beat out modesty and she didn’t wait for Sombra to leave to change out of her nightclothes. After swiftly weaving a dress from hard light she pulled on her boots and stood next to Sombra. “Let’s go, then?”

And then her window opened.

Satya flinched, arms shielding herself from a gust of cold air before looking at the woman standing in the window. The intruder, with eerie blue skin and iridescent catsuit looked just as shocked to see Satya out of bed and alert, having expected to intrude on her sleeping. She didn’t seem shocked to see Sombra, simply because when Satya looked back, the hacker was gone.

The woman in the window pressed a finger to her ear, simply saying “The situation’s been compromised” in an accent matching the one heard on the recording, before raising a large sniper rifle and aiming it at Satya’s gut. “I didn’t want to have to shoot you, _cherie_ , you’ll have to forgive me. We do want to take you in alive, though, don’t worry. This will only hurt.... well, it will hurt a lot.”

She pulled the trigger, there was a flash of purple, and the world disappeared.

* * *

“What the _fuck_ happened back there?” Satya felt nauseous after their landing, but after looking around the place and realizing she had teleported as opposed to dying, she much preferred the nausea.

“Shit timing,” Sombra said, holding Satya in one arm after their teleport. In the other hand she had a sparking, overheated translocator, but soon let it clatter to the wood floor in favor of clutching her hand over her abdomen, a dark spot growing through the fabric of her clothes. “Really, _really_ shit timing.”


	7. 04/10/2070 23:00

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im Back? its finals week next week and i have to move so not really but i’m posting two chapters for this update!
> 
> this is the first part of it and i wrote it for retribution which tells you how behind i am.

“Do you have visuals on them?”

Sombra snickered, giving the man a cheeky grin as her fingers danced across a keyboard and a display lit up, showing what looked to be a map and four bright red moving blips in the bottom left corner. “Do you doubt me boss? They’re here, sans Lacroix, but we’ll get him the next time, si?”

The man known as Antonio Bartalotti leaned in from behind her to get a better look at the display. “Commander came here to get me himself? He’s a much better grab.”

The young hacker smacked mint gum behind her red lips. Her employer smelled like cigars and she didn’t care for it. “Reyes? He’s a wild card. If you keep him talking, maybe we grab the ninja or the cowboy, make them squirm to leak some info.”

Bartalotti gave a satisfied huff and stepped away. “I’ll leave communications up to you, then. I’ll be in my office.”

“Si, si. Let me ring up a sniper for you-“

When she turned, her boss was gone.

“‘tch. Impatient,” she muttered, turning back to her keyboard. But what she saw on screen wasn’t right.

It wasn’t a map anymore, but a camera feed. And instead of four blips there were four bodies on the floor. There was still red, though, and far too much of it.

This wasn’t right. Sombra knew that. Not in the moral sense, exactly, but. This isn’t how it was supposed to go.

This isn’t how it went.

With a start the hacker stood, knocking over her rolling chair to the floor with a plastic clatter. She looked around frantically. She was supposed to be in India, not with Talon in fucking Italy. Where was Satya? Was she okay? Sombra needed to get back to her, needed to protect--

“You failed.”

Sombra turned to see Bartalotti standing in the doorway of her room, a bright light behind him casting his large shadow unto her. From what details she could make out, the point blank shot he’d taken from Reyes had completely ripped his features apart. He shouldn’t have been talking. In a blink his features were replaced with that of a different man, a different, stronger boss, and back to Bartalotti again.

“No- no. I know,” Sombra said, despite her every nerve was now screaming this wasn’t right. 

“You know what happens when you can’t do your job.”

Sombra knew very well, and she woke up screaming.


	8. 01/21/2078 08:23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the second part of a two part update \o/

 Satya checked Sombra’s vitals.

Being a healer was incredibly stressful, and that’s part of why Satya never pursued it as a career. After teleporting to wherever they were, Sombra had fainted in Satya’s arms, leaving the architect to figure things out herself. She set the hacker down on a nearby couch and made her way over towards a tiny bathroom, where after a minute of frantic searching she found a med kit. It had bandages, a biotic transmitter, various glass vials Satya didn’t dare touch, and clear syringes of what she hoped was morphine.

After stripping the other woman of her jacket and shirt, Satya looked for an exit wound. There had in fact been one, which made Satya glad she didn’t have to worry about digging a bullet out. There was still a hell of a lot of blood, though.

While cleaning the other woman up and bandaging the wound, Satya’s gaze fell on the technology she saw embedded into the hacker’s spine, drawing her own conclusions as to why they would be there. She was surprised at seeing some other wounds though, giving the old cuts and burns on her skin some needed attention once the bullet wound had been taken care of. The woman’s skin was littered with scars too, though many of which were easily hidden under clothing. The most notable one ran deep and way too close to her spine, cutting under glowing purple metal and wire.

Eventually Sombra was wrapped up and laying down on a couch with the transmitter device letting out a soft yellow glow, supposedly speeding up the process. Satya now REALLY hoped the clear stuff was morphine as she delivered a shot of that too.

Soon some more examination showed that Sombra would be okay for now, leaving Satya to relax, if only for a bit. She changed outfits and cleaned herself of Sombra’s blood that was beginning to crust on her skin. Impulse caused her to set up two sentry turrets by the door, and then. She snooped.

The apartment they had zapped off to was tiny, and most of the ambient lighting was the trademark purple of Sombra’s tech embedded in the walls. There was a couch which Sombra now occupied most of, a bench pressed against the wall, a mini fridge with a few magnets on its door, and a shelf housing a few books, knick knacks, and a small aquarium housing a bright blue beta fish, the last of which Satya had the afterthought to feed a few flakes. There was also a desk with far too many files piled on top of it and another with a large computer setup.

Of course the computer was password protected, a pixel skull on the screens taunting Satya after she tried some nonsense guess.

As Satya worried her lip under her teeth a scream made her flinch and turn towards the source. Sombra was sitting up now, sweating and clutching her abdomen in pain.

“You’ve been shot, you need to be resting,” Satya lectured as she returned to the hacker’s side and eased her onto her back.

Sombra gazed at Satya for a moment before her vision cleared and she relaxed under Satya’s touch. “...I see.”

“...Are you okay?”

Sombra broke her gaze then and let her eyelids fall shut. “Yeah. I’ve had worse things than being shot.”

Satya didn’t ask her to clarify, leaving Sombra to rest once more.

Now that she knew the hacker probably wasn’t dying she relaxed a bit and sat in a hard light chair, working a geometric shape in her palm to keep herself busy.

And then she bothered to draw the blinds and check out the window and she wheezed.

This place wasn’t in India, not by a long shot.


	9. 01/21/2078 12:12

 

“We’re in _Mexico_ ,” the woman claimed when she was conscious again, smirking with pride like a cat who got the cream. The morphine was in full swing at this point, making her just a bit loopy. “Little town called Castillo.”

“Does anyone else know where this is?”

“My landlord, but I paid her a looooooot of money to turn a blind eye.” Sombra pointed at one of her own eyes, making it go buggy as she screwed the other one shut. “The poor lady’s really blind in one eye! Isn’t that funny.”

Satya didn’t think it was funny. “It’s not funny.”

Sombra whined like a child, her lips accentuated in a pout. “You know, for someone so pretty you can be so _mean_. Just play with me in the spaace.”

The architect sighed and shook her head, and there was a beat of silence between them.

“Linda,” Sombra said, softer now as she gazed up at the other woman from where she lay. “I know you asked me not to snoop, and I couldn’t find out why anyway, so you’ll have to tell me.”

“Yes?”

“Why did they take your arm?”

Satya blinked, stunned by the question and her artificial fingers curled. “Architechs need the prosthetic to perform their duties,” she said reflexively.

“No, no. There are others who just got enhancements and it was fine. But they- you- Vishkar took your fucking _arm_.”

Satya clenched her shaking fist, falling silent as she thought. She was the best of the best, after all, it would have made sense to fit her with the best gear. Or make her useless without it. Satya swallowed a hard lump in her throat and broke eye contact with Sombra. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she murmured, flesh thumb working at the palm of her prosthetic.

“...Okay.” And silence fell between them once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the short chapter, next one will be longer!  
> if you got my mbmbam reference we’re already friends


	10. 01/21/2078 21:30

“I want to go back,” Satya said after Sombra was a little more with it. With maybe three hours of sleep between the incident back in her apartment bedroom and now, Satya’s patience was thinner than any thread she could ever weave.

“Not till I’m fit to travel,” Sombra said dismissively. “That last stunt got my calibration all whacked up. I have translocators all over, so I’ll need to reboot my systems to make sure we get to the right place.” As she talked she tossed the poor device into the air and caught it, much like one would with a baseball. She then went back to tinkering with it.

Satya guessed it made sense, but it still made her pout as she sat cross legged in the chair of her hard light. “The bullet made it break?”

“No, no, it was a rush job. It usually takes me a minute if I’m crossing international distances, but. I had to hurry back here, you understand.”

As much as one could understand Sombra’s high level of technology, Satya just nodded. Vishkar’s teleportation technology was far different than whatever Sombra had cooked up.

It had been a whole day of waiting for Sombra’s health to improve, and already Satya was antsy. People were looking for her across the world and here she was, in the hacker’s den just waiting to be found.

Plus Sombra’s mini fridge food was either stale or appalling.

“I’m going out,” Satya told her as evening rolled around, standing to leave. “We need a proper meal if you are to get fully better.”

Sombra snickered from where she lazed on the couch, but when she moved to a sitting position she winced. “With what, rupees?” She sucked in a breath as she pointed to a purse on the messier desk. “There’s pesos in there, take em. Bar’s down the street, I want an enchilada.”

Satya just took the whole bag with her, not knowing the exchange rate off the top of her head and not knowing how much she would need to take. As she walked she admired the aesthetics of the small town, having never been to Mexico. It was beautiful, the town’s outskirts overlooking a long stretch of mountains and beyond that, the ocean. Small lanterns and twinkling lights illuminated her path and the diverse art decorating the town’s walls. Satya smiled to herself, only to then wrinkle her nose at the sight of graffiti belonging to whatever local gang claimed this place as their turf.

The bar was easy enough to find, being the only one of its kind in town. It was a little place, lit with warm lights and tended to by an omnic man while some old soccer rerun played on a small television on in the corner.

After looking over the menu, Satya just ended up ordering two enchiladas, not being too familiar with Mexican food and just having to trust Sombra that it’d be good. As she waited, another patron entered the bar: an adult man, his head partially shaved to show glowing sort of tattoos that faded as he stepped further into the light.

At first Satya feigned disinterest, but still he sat right next to her, leaning in with a sneer.

“Well you’re pretty,” he purred in English, already drunk judging by the smell of his breath alone. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you around here.”

“I’m traveling,” she replied dismissively, avoiding eye contact and frowning at his breath.

“You staying here for the night, though, sweetheart? Got somewhere to go?”

“I have a place, yes.”

The man hummed, and tittered to the omnic bartender in Spanish. The tender handed Satya a bag of her food before taking the tattooed man’s orders and heading back to the kitchen to prepare them.

And then the tattooed man turned back to the architect.

“How’s about you take me back to that place you got, then, show me a little fun?”

“I’m not interested,” Satya insisted as she gathered her things and the food.

The flash of a knife had her stopped in her tracks. “Yeah? That’s too bad. Then I’ll take the bag and that pretty piece you got for an arm.”

Oh this was bad. A glance at the bar was hopeless, the tender in the back making more food now. Her eyes flicked to the door and her mechanical hand moved behind her back so she could conjure up a rivaling knife, a shield, anything to protect herself. And then he spoke again.

“I’m faster than you, I know it. Don’t even try.”

She didn’t end up having to. The space between her and the man was occupied suddenly, a familiar pistol pressing itself to the underside of the man’s chin.

“She’s mine, chico.”

His expression darkened at the appearance of Sombra, who had dressed in only a tank top and dark jeans. Unarmored, unprotected with only her wits and a gun. He spat at her in quicker, dirtier Spanish that Satya couldn’t decipher before switching back to English. “Didn’t know you still called this place yours, Colomar.”

Sombra flinched at the name and tightened her grip on the gun. “I might be a bit... _sentimental_. We good here?”

“I get to keep my brains and your tech off my ass? Seems good,” the man replied, the fire in his eyes gone.

“Good.” Sombra took a few steps backwards, keeping Satya behind her until they were out the bar and heading down the streets.

“I thought you said you were unfit to travel,” Satya said, voice clipped. Her arm circled protectively around the other woman’s waist to help her walk at a quicker pace.

“I am.” Sombra gave a pained laugh, leaning into Satya’s touch. “Might have opened something back up with that.”

“How did you know?”

“Remembered the town wasn’t free of gang life yet. Had to be safe.”

“...I’m sorry.”

Sombra looked up at Satya as they paused in her doorway. “Why? I’m the one roping you into my bullshit.”

“You took a bullet for me. Would have taken a knife for me too. I’m not defenseless and it could get you hurt,” she chastised, poking a finger into Sombra’s chest.

Sombra’s gaze flitted away and she shoved her gun into the back of her pants, withdrawing a bit. “This whole job’s about trust, isn’t it?”

A pang of hurt traveled through Satya’s chest. “I trust you.”

“But not really, right? Once you’re sitting nice and pretty at the top of Vishkar you’ll turn on me, just like everyone else.”

Satya was quiet for a moment, the ocean breeze of the night giving both women goosebumps on their arms. “That’s what you think of me, then. Do you... really want me to trust you?”

“...I do.”

“Then tell me who Colomar is.”


	11. 01/22/2078 00:30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! again, i dont have a beta reader so please point out any mistakes i may have missed

Sombra did. She didn’t tell Satya everything, but they sat cross legged across from each other on her couch with the biotic transmitter pulsing between them. She would answer the architect’s questions to the best of her ability.

Olivia Colomar. A handle she used as a teenager and when she mingled in Los Muertos, the closest to her “real name” that was left. It wasn’t her birth name, the only thing left of that name was ash and a fading memory. But Colomar was still a pretty good way to trace her down.

Her hometown. Ruins overleft from the Omnic war, it taught an abandoned orphan that it was a tooth and nail world and she would have to work hard to get to the top. Not much longer after she learned to read had she learned to code, and to hack. And how useful of a skill that would turn out to be.

Talon. She had worked intimately with them a number of years back: carrying out irredeemable missions to earn their trust, a living wage, and the position she was at now. She wasn’t proud of the things she’s had to do for them, not in the slightest.

Castillo. Been living in it on and off for about twelve years, abandoning it every time she’d had to go dark. There was something about the town that she kept wanting to go back to, though. Maybe it was how it was so off-radar. Maybe it was her sentimentality.

In return, Satya told her about Rio. How she had wanted so desperately to help the people living in dirt. That she helped Sanjay do Vishkar’s dirty deeds to some degree, and it plagued her with guilt so often. That it was a loose thread that may let their whole plan slip through their fingers. Her chest ached at the confession, and she realized she’d never been able to share her guilt before now.

“Satya.” She locked eyes with the other woman, a shared pain between them. “You weren’t calling the shots. You’re a good person.”

The words made Satya want to cry. “I don’t even think I’m a person at all sometimes. I’m just a tool,” she admitted.

“You’re not a tool, kay? You’re a fucking person. Tell me how you like the food.”

The forgotten enchiladas, of course. A single bite of the now cold food had Satya actually tearing up. “It’s really good.”

“See? Tools can’t taste or enjoy things or be _happy_. They exist only to serve.”

“Thank you...” Satya paused. “Ah. Olivia. It’s a pretty name.”

The hacker flushed at the name and after looking conflicted for a moment, she nodded. “Just don’t go shouting that name around like it’s nothing.”

Satya laughed, wiping her eyes and nodding. She finished off the food faster than she thought, plastic fork scraping at the remains in the carton. Being cooped up playing medic all day and then nearly getting stabbed really worked up an appetite.

After they were finished and Satya rose to finally make her own bed from hard light, Olivia stopped her with a tug to her dress.

“Linda... we can leave in the morning. We have all we need to move forward with the plan, but. With Talon watching closer now, things might get really messy. Stay with me.”

Satya blinked at the confession and slowly, she nodded. She detached her prosthetic arm and placed it on the floor. Settling herself down next to the other woman, she was careful of her injuries and pulled a blanket over the both of them. They didn’t kiss, didn’t do anything more than hold each other at arms length. But as the two women eventually drifted off, they couldn’t call what they had a friendship anymore. It was more than that.

That night, Satya had never felt less alone.


	12. 01/22/2078 10:30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did anyone notice my huge typo last chapter??? i did and fixed it just now haha
> 
> enjoy!!

Phase Two of Operation: V started with a phone call.

“I owe some favors,” Sombra had explained, multitasking fixing her translocator with one hand and pulling up some holographic files in the air with another. “I made a little mess in Russia, but now that I have what I want, I don’t need to blackmail Volskaya anymore. Zaryanova’s been a pain in my ass but hopefully this wraps everything up.”

These names were unfamiliar to Satya. “Zaryanova?”

“Aleksandra. World class bodybuilder and Russian war hero, got in tight with Overwatch. We send this all her way and let Overwatch take the credit, my debt to her is paid.

“I don’t exactly like having to go to Overwatch, but. This will get things international and these are the best guys to do that. There’s a 98.5% chance they have no loyalty to Vishkar, they scrubbed themselves clean of Talon rats, and a story like this will improve their rep. The monkey’s gonna eat this up.”

Satya blinked. “The monkey?”

The hacker pulled up some old news footage of some Overwatch agents apprehending a man in the streets of Numbani. “Big guy. Apparently he’s the Commander of the new Overwatch, and I can’t find a single incriminating thing on him. Just a too-smart gorilla dumb enough to fight for a good cause.”

That set Satya at ease, as bizarre as it was to hear about a gorilla leading an organization for peace. “So we collaborate with Overwatch, Vishkar gets exposed, and then what?”

A beat of silence. “That’ll be it. All the execs get what’s coming to them and you’re in the highest ranking uncorrupted position, so responsibility will be turned over to you.”

“And you’ll leave.”

Sombra looked away. “Probably. I’m not a limelight kinda person.”

“Come work for Vishkar then.”

She laughed. “I’m not exactly a _good_  person, either.”

Satya’s stare didn’t waver. “We’ll work on that.”

The hacker flustered under the other woman’s gaze and fumbled with her tech. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, ah?”

Satya relented with a soft grunt, smoothing down her skirt when Sombra finally put Zaryanova on the phone.

It didn’t take long for her to answer, a woman’s face appearing on a projected screen. She had a short shock of pink hair and a scar at her temple, and squinted at what she saw.

“Hacker. What do you want?”

Sombra gave a cheeky grin and a wave. “Que pasa? I’ve got a big delivery of hot tea for you.”

The two women talked over the call about the situation, with Sombra getting back into her element and showing the Russian woman the evidence she wanted. None of it was really news or interest to Satya, until the subject was turned onto her.

“Who’s she?”

“Satya Vaswani works for Vishkar, but is really just a puppet for them and-“

Satya grumbled and pushed her way into the frame. “I can speak for myself, thank you. I am the top Architech of Vishkar and I have been collaborating with Sombra on this exposé to help clear my name and the company of this filth, and intend to inherit it after the appropriate culprits have been apprehended.”

Zaryanova just gave a huff of satisfaction. “Is that so? And what will you do if we tear it down? There might not be anything left if we go in.”

Satya’s mind went blank. She hadn’t thought of that of a possibility. Up until now the possibilities were total failure or total success. There hadn’t been much consideration for in-betweens. Life without Vishkar had never been a possibility for Satya, even if they were to turn the company inside out it was still something Satya could fall back on.

The woman on the phone pinched the bridge of her nose at Satya’s silence. “Okay. Listen. We do this, hacker, we’re even. But you, Satya. If this turns out to be good we can extend an invitation to you.”

To... Overwatch? Satya looked even more perplexed. “I will consider your offer.”

“I know what Vishkar tries to do, and maybe that’s what you want. We help people too, yeah?” Zaryanova seemed to type a few things down. “I’ll let you know when we touch down in India.” And then she ended the call.

Sombra sighed and sat back, clearing the display with a wave of her hand. “Wow. They really might go in there guns blazing.”

Satya ran her hands through her hair and smoothed it over one shoulder. “Did you know?”

“No. It was a possibility, but so were a lot of others. She might not have even taken my offer, so this is a good thing.”

Satya tried to remember all of the people involved in the heinous side of Vishkar. After this, who would be left? Would Satya have a shell of a company on her hands or could she actually succeed in running a humanitarian organization

After a moment of thought the answer was clear in her mind.

“Send Aleksandra the files. I know what I want to do.”


	13. 01/23/2078 14:27

Returning to Utopaea proved to be... challenging.

Going to Satya’s apartment without properly scouting first was playing with fire, and going to the office at Vishkar whatsoever was messy no matter what was going on over there. That left a quaint little coffee shop bathroom or a not-so desirable alleyway for the two women to return to. Satya chose the former.

“Have you ever, ah, intruded on someone in a private place like this?” Satya had asked. They were taking the long route this time, Satya needing to hold onto the other woman’s arm as they traveled. The sensation was odd. Unlike using a Vishkar hard light teleporter, which was a pleasant, quick feeling, translocating proved to be a cold feeling, surrounded by purple lines of technology and leaving a coppery taste in Satya’s mouth. It was like walking through a digitized tunnel with only pennies as a travel snack. Still, she felt lighter, almost, as if she were walking on air with Sombra.

“Only when I first started doing stuff like this,” Sombra answered. “Then it stopped being fun, so now I use single stall bathrooms as little as possible.”

They arrived invisible and next to the counter in what indeed looked to be a woman’s bathroom in Utopaea. It was empty, though, so Sombra dropped the camouflage and their images appeared in the bathroom mirror, sudden and from the hacker’s trademark purple. Satya took a moment to fix her hair and straighten her clothes. Before departure she had weaved a cyan kurti out of hard light so as to not return in a state of disarray. She had no makeup on her person, unfortunately, but at least she could dress nice.

Sombra reached under the counter, and with a grunt she detached a translocator from underneath and shoved it in her bag. She didn’t pamper herself as much as Satya, but to blend in, she wore a similar garment, white and blue with dark leggings underneath. Surprisingly, with a wave of her hand, the purple in her hair faded to an unassuming brown and she fixed the part to blend in better.

“You do this often, then?”

“I’m a master of disguise,” Sombra answered, applying a quick swipe of blue lip gloss to top it all off. “My field gear lets me do my job the most efficiently, but like. Come on. You’ve seen it, it’s like a blinding beacon in a place like this.”

Satya had to agree. Espionage and aesthetic were hard to balance. Sombra tailed her on their way out of the bathroom, and it wasn’t until they reached the street housing Vishkar’s HQ that they were swamped.

The main commotion was happening at the skyscraper itself. From the looks of it, Overwatch personnel were just about everywhere and escorting people out of the building, many of which were handcuffed and not happy about it at all.

There were maybe thousands of onlookers, too, and a handful of newscasters and reporters eager to get a grasp of the situation. As Satya got closer to the scene, she was recognized with a shout and swamped with her own entourage of reporters.

“Miss Vaswani! Were you aware of the corruption rotting Vishkar from the top down?”

“Were your actions as Symmetra of your own?”

”Are you working for Talon too?”

“Why did you call upon the assistance of Overwatch, even though their actions violate guidelines set by the Petras Act?”

“What will you do now?”

Satya raised her palm to still the questions before she got overwhelmed. “I will release a statement once things have settled down,” she answered, calm and collected.

And then she made eye contact with Sanjay.

He was being escorted outside the building by a woman donning Overwatch baby blue, and didn’t look happy about it at all. But then he saw Satya and his discontentment boiled into rage.

“ _You_ \- YOU did this! We gave you EVERYTHING and this is how you repay your company? You’re a DISGRACE to everything Vishkar stood for and you’re still the dirty _nobody_ we plucked off the streets,” he spat in her direction. And then the man did something unexpected; he wrenched himself from the Overwatch woman’s grip, and withdrew a handgun from the back of his pants, which he promptly aimed at Satya’s head. “If we’re going down, you’re coming with us.”

And then he fired.

And then the bullet lodged itself uselessly into the blue grid of a shield not two inches from Satya’s forehead.

And then she smiled, a small shield generator whirring in the palm of her hand. “I don’t think so.”

The scene erupted into chaos; most put in their distance in fear for their own safety, and many were shouting and cheering for Satya. The Overwatch woman from before grabbed Sanjay in a flash before he could fire the gun again, kicking the weapon away and handcuffing him this time. With a wave of Satya’s hand the bullet clattered to the ground, a crumpled melted shell of brass, and the generator fizzled out of creation.

“I told you I could take care of myself,” Satya said proudly, looking over her shoulder at Sombra. But, shockingly, the hacker was nowhere to be seen. No worries. Satya let out a soft huff and smoothed down the fabric of her clothing. They would meet up later. For now, people were once more swarming around Satya, desperate for answers.


	14. 02/07/2078 15:00

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to everyone who’s been leaving kudos and comments! you are my lifeblood.
> 
> if you want more stories with sym and sombra, i’m participating in the overwatch rarepair week! my other fic “A Week of Their Love” contains some nice little snippets of writing, go check it out!

 

“I was never fit to lead,” Satya claimed, her voice echoed by the microphones of a press conference. The constant photography flashing was bothersome, but the cue cards in her hand guided away from distraction, and she continued her speech in front of the City Hall. “All my life, all I’ve ever known is Vishkar and performing to please them. Taking them down from the inside was truly... when I started to feel alive. And so, it’s all coming down,” she announced. Murmurs rippled through the crowd, and she paused to wait for their quiet. “To celebrate the retirement of the Vishkar name and brand, I am donating 100 percent of its funds to the state, designated for the aid of the lower class. This includes focus on affordable housing, efficient homeless shelters and food programs, and increasing employment rates across the board.”

Satya tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as the crowd gave pleased cheers and polite applause, and that was just from the few hundred people physically attending the event. Who knows how many more were watching the live broadcast, and how they felt about it. The architect let out a soft sigh and smoothed her hands over the podium in front of her. “I will now be open to questions.”

“Do you think the company’s decline will lead to a decrease in the city’s technology efficiency? Vishkar was integral to the city’s development.”

“Quite the opposite,” Satya answered. “All of Vishkar’s documents and patents have been released to the public. You can find all their records at the city library, or online. I believe this share of information will increase accessibility and job opportunities for all.”

“What are your plans after Vishkar?”

Satya looked into the crowd, making eye contact with a pink haired woman who gave her a nod and a smile. “I believe I’ve earned myself a break, but in terms of returning to work, I believe I have an invitation to Overwatch.”

“In exposing Vishkar, did you act alone?”

Satya blinked at that question. In the time that it had taken the situation to settle down and for Satya to take the reins with Vishkar, Sombra hadn’t made herself known. Message received, supposedly. She _had_  said she wasn’t a limelight person.

“I did have assistance, but their identity shall remain undisclosed for the foreseeable future.”

A confused murmur passed over the crowd, but the subject was soon forgotten in light of another question: “It’s been brought to attention that Vishkar was in collaboration with Talon, the terrorist organization? Are you worried they’ll come after you?”

Satya gave a somber nod. “That danger was prevalent from the beginning of my investigation. However, in working with Overwatch, we will have a common interest and enemy.” She smiled in Aleksandra’s direction. “I am confident that if I have their back, they will have mine.”

The questions continued on until the press conference reached past its scheduled end. Satya carried on politely, but eventually her patience wore thin and almost felt the weight lift off her shoulders when things were said and done. On her way home, her feet carried her past the now inoperable Vishkar skyscraper. The property was to be turned over to the city for them to do what they wanted with it, but Satya suspected it would remain as some kind of office space.

Still, the former architect ached for some sense of familiarity after all the chaos and change that the past weeks have brought her. Even seeing Sombra again would be a comfort to her, at this point.

The one thing that hadn’t drastically changed was her apartment. Following the initial break in, her neighbors had apparently heard a gunshot in the night, but when local police arrived they found no one. After doing a thorough sweep of the property herself, finding no bugs or traps of any kind, Satya had allowed herself to relax there once again.

Even so, Overwatch advised that with their invitation, it would be preferable to have her work in person there, and the closest of their operating bases was on the other side of the Mediterranean. To work there for real, and make everything official, Satya would have to leave her home. She wasn’t ready for that, hadn’t ever considered it in the scheme of things. The organization had given her as much time as she needed to take a needed break and relocate, but Satya knew she couldn’t _not_  work forever.

Packing her things was proving to be a big task, so tonight Satya put it off in favor of using her beloved kitchen one last time, to make some chocolate lava cake and boil some tea to match. She’d made the recipe probably a thousand times, and so easily got absorbed in her task.

“Looks good.”

The voice behind Satya’s back made her shout, jolting in surprise and spilling some batter over her apron. With a noise she put the bowl down on the counter and spun to face her intruder.

But Satya’s anger fizzled out as she took in the image of the hacker standing before her, wearing a dark gray and red (and tattered) version of her outfit and her face sporting a fresh cut and black eye. Still, it didn’t keep Sombra from giving the other woman a cheeky smile. “Miss me?”

“ _Olivia.”_ Satya rushed forward to hug the other (batter on her outfit be damned) but her arms passed straight through Sombra, revealing her to be a holographic image.

“I’m sorry linda, I’m not actually here. Well. There. I can’t say where I am.” Now that Satya noticed, Sombra’s words were also hushed, quick. “I don’t have much time, but long story short I’m with Talon, they’ve got their noses all up in my ass and I don’t know when I’m going to be able to come back.”

Satya cleared her throat and stepped back a bit. “...I see. Why not just call?”

“Phone calls can be traced way easier than this. I don’t want them to know I reached out to you-” A distant, staticy crash sounded and Sombra turned her head in surprise. “ _Shit._ Gotta go, don’t wait up for me.”

With a fizzle the image of the hacker was gone and Satya was left alone in her kitchen once more. She had a sinking feeling she wouldn’t be seeing Sombra for a long time. Her chest ached something awful now and she glanced back at the remainder of the chocolate batter. The cake wouldn’t taste as good eaten alone, she figured, and with a strained sigh Satya stored the batter in the fridge for later. She didn’t feel like cooking anymore.


	15. 02/26/2078 17:45

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> our cast finally expands!! this is the first part of a double update, and thanks for reading!

“I know we’ve got members from just about all over, but I promise you our facilities are fully functional for all of your needs!”

Satya listened politely as she was led around the Overwatch facility by a younger woman who’d introduced herself as Lena Oxton. The architect recognized her from just a few weeks ago, the one who had handcuffed Sanjay Korpal and dragged him away. Now instead of baby blue, the British woman was donning a leather jacket and leggings. And shoes that, fashionably... Satya had no polite remarks about Lena’s shoes.

“I’m curious about your research division, Agent Oxton. And how familiar your coworkers are with hard-light technology,” Satya replied, gaze flitting around at what looked to be a shooting range, with some defunct omnics looking worse for wear.

“Just Lena’s fine! Or Tracer if you prefer,” Lena replied with a bright smile. “Admittedly, we barely knew a thing about hard light since Vish’ kept it so under wraps. Since you made that all public information, I’m sure Winston’s dove headfirst into studying it! But...” and here her expression grew sheepish, “I’m sure you’d be the real expert on the subject. We’d all like some pointers from you.”

Upon arriving at the Watchpoint: Gibraltar, Satya had met with Winston, who was indeed an actual talking gorilla. But his enthusiasm for her joining the organization and his clear passion for the sciences made Satya like him immediately. Other personnel she’d met so far was a louder, older man, Reinhardt Wilhelm, and his mechanic, a younger woman by the name of Brigitte Lindholm. Both, although vastly different, were quite the character.

“But!” Lena continued, leading Satya from the shooting range into another building. “We have a fully equipped workshop and research department that you’re free to use whenever you’d like.”

Satya would have to take that offer once she was done with this tour. “And what is your specialty, Miss Tracer?”

Lena rolled her eyes in a playful manner before bumping her fist to the bright device hanging off her shoulders and centered at her chest. “Time travel and physical travel, _Miss_  Satya. I can make good out on the field, but I’m also the best pilot on this side of the pond!”

Satya made a mental note of that. “That’s very impressive, for someone so young,” she complimented.

Lena laughed at that. “Oh, no, I’m way older than I look. But thank you for that!” She puffed out her chest a bit. “If you need to get somewhere, the ‘Cavalry’ can get you anywhere you need!”

She found Tracer to be quite charming, and with a soft laugh she nodded. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

“Oh! Also, we have fairly sizable dormitories should you choose to stay here. They come equipped with a bathroom, closet space-“

Satya raised a hand to interrupt. “That is very kind, but I’ll have to decline. I’ve found an apartment in town that is best suited to my needs.” She didn’t have many belongings, no, but Satya would rather pay a bit more to have a quiet place of her own.

Lena didn’t seem surprised to hear that. “I see. Well, there’s plenty of space if you ever need to spend the night!” She led Satya into what looked like a mess hall. “We also have an industrial kitchen and dining area. A lot of us like to cook around here, so often we’ll have group meals, and you’re welcome to join us.”

“I’d like nothing more,” Satya replied with a polite smile. “Thank you for the tour.”

“Not a problem, love!” Lena gave the other woman a salute. “I’ll leave you to it then. You can find me just about anywhere if you need, and you can use the Watchpoint’s AI if you like as well.”

“That is correct, Agent Vaswani,” chimed a pleasant voice from a speaker embedded in the ceiling. Satya had already been introduced to the intelligence program Athena, but it was still unnerving to know she was listening at any given moment.

“Good to know,” she said, looking back from the way they came. “Now, if you excuse me...”

Lena smiled and started to head off. “Yeah, yeah, go geek out in the science space.”

Satya didn’t geek out.

She _super_  geeked out.

The workshop on the watchpoint was filled head-to-toe with just about every mechanical tool known to the planet, from screwdrivers and hammers and axes and wrenches of any and all sizes, to laser cutters and a huge blueprint space. There was a woodshop division and a metalshop, and even a really big 3-D printer. Satya would have geeked out on the outside if she were the only person here, but that was not the case.

Hunched over at the metalshop division was a short, bearded man hammering away at some bright metal and making the most godawful clanging sound Satya had ever heard, over and over and over. Now this simply wouldn’t do. Simply resolving to pass through for now and come tinker later, Satya strolled past the man, unable to help but glance over at what he was working on.

Okay, the builder in her was a little curious.

She approached the other, her heels clicking at the floor and alerting the man to her presence. He looked up briefly from the metal, eyes sweeping over her before turning right back to his work. “Vishkar scum,” he muttered with a thick Scandinavian accent.

She wrinkled her nose a bit. “That’s no way to introduce yourself to a coworker.”

“We’re not coworkers till you prove yourself.”

“I tipped Overwatch off to my company’s misdoings,” Satya replied, offended.

The man put down his hammer for real this time, squinting up at the architect. “But are you really good? You still dress... like _that,_  and from what I can tell you act all hoity-toity.”

Satya sneered a bit, hardly phased by his insults. It wasn’t anything she’d heard before. “Athena?”

“Yes?” chimed the voice from the ceiling.

“Who is this man?”

“You are speaking with Agent Torbjorn Lindholm,” Athena replied, and Torbjorn squinted harder before turning back to his metal.

“Lousy machine,” he muttered towards the ceiling.

“I heard that,” said Athena, but she was quiet once more.

Lindholm. Brigitte must be his daughter or something. She was... much more friendly than this man. Satya figured she wasn’t welcome at the moment and stepped back from Torbjorn. “I belong here just the same as you, and I don’t need fashion and _etiquette_  advice from someone with soot in his beard.”

“People like the soot,” the man replied, stroking said beard with two fingers and striking the hot metal with his hammer once more.

Satya _tsk_ ed and stormed off out of the workshop. Some people just weren’t as happy to welcome her, it seemed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really love the concept of a tracer and symmetra friendship, and the (slightly canon) torbjorn and sym rivalry so sue me


	16. 02/26/2078 18:05

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was the second part of a two part update, so make sure you’ve read chapter fifteen first! thanks for reading!!

 

The laboratory was much more Satya’s speed, if only for the fact that it was currently unoccupied. It was filled with different cabinets of chemicals and books and lab equipment, and the only noise came from the hum of a few generators and the bubbling from tanks of...some kind of liquid. The quiet was perfect for what Satya needed to do.

Sitting at one of the tables, Satya withdrew her laptop from a bag hanging from her shoulder and opened it, opening her browser on incognito before pausing.

“Athena, how secure are your networks?”

“Our internet is fairly secure, as any and all signals are encrypted through my services,” Athena replied. “Any information you share with me will be confidential unless it is detrimental to your or someone else’s personal safety.”

Satya took note of that. “That will be all.”

Satisfied that she couldn’t easily be tracked down or recorded, Satya opened a background program before making some searches. Even though she had sent Sombra’s device back to her, she wasn’t an idiot. She’d copied the program onto a hard drive in case she’d ever need to do some hacking herself. And maybe using Sombra’s technology would help Satya lead her to the source.

Talon’s activity in Utopaea and specifically the Widowmaker incident went unfortunately unrecorded as far as she could find. The latest thing she could find was a prison breakout in Numbani, but that was both public information and months ago. She had to dig deeper.

Searching through the Overwatch databases proved to be a little more useful. Legally, she only had access to a certain level of files, and there Satya found that they had taken note of Talon’s ties with Vishkar and their surprising lack of presence on the day of the company’s fall. Here, she learned more about the Talon members on the radar and their last appearances; the figure known as Reaper being the most prominent, its last recorded activity was over a year ago, in Volskaya, Russia with the Widowmaker.

That sounded eerily familiar to Satya, but as she scrubbed through the files there was no solid proof Sombra had been there. A dead end.

She backtracked, looking up information on Widowmaker. There was no recorded evidence of the break-in to her apartment. Perhaps Talon utilized the sniper for stealth and low-importance missions. Despite this, her recorded success rate was dangerously high, specializing in assassinations and kidnappings. Satya’s fingers trembled for a moment before she steeled herself and dug deeper.

With the help of Sombra’s program, she breached Talon’s databases. Several windows popped up, many of which were then automatically logged in with Sombra’s information. Here, she looked into more files concerning Widowmaker, sorted by most recent. With a lurch in her stomach, there were no documented assignments for her in Utopaea.

When she tried to go deeper, though, her screen went dark. And then lit anew, showing her a video feed of a hooded figure, face obscured by a teal mask resembling a rabbit. “Are you suicidal?” they asked, voice mechanically disguised.

Satya jolted, looking from the screen to the ceiling. “I thought this server was _secure,”_  she snapped at Athena.

“My apologies. Even the most complex encryptions can be hacked. Would you like me to trace the source of the hacker?”

Even though Satya’s laptop camera was covered by tape, her microphone was clearly still accessed by the hacker. “No need,” the figure on the screen replied. “I’m an ally, trust me. You’re looking for that Sombra person, correct?”

“..Yes,” Satya said carefully.

“You’re lucky I found you before they did. I’ve ejected you from Talon’s databases. You won’t find what you need there, but I can help get you the information you desire.”

“...Why would you do that for me? Who are you?” Satya inquired.

“Like I said, I’m an ally. Browsing like that, you were sure to trigger their cybersecurity. Who do you think coded Talon’s failsafes?”

Satya swallowed and didn’t need to answer.

The hacker continued. “I have experience in finding her. I noticed her activity went dark recently, which is unusual. However, I know she has ties to you and the Vishkar incident. If you’re looking for her, you’re going to need help,” they explained

The question that formed on her lips was familiar. “What’s in it for you?”

“Zaryanova doesn’t like me or my kind, so maybe you could put a good word in.”

“To  _Overwatch?”_

“I’m a mercenary, but let’s say I prefer helping the greater good,” they answered.

Satya gave a dark chuckle. “...You remind me of her. Okay. What do I need to do?”

“I’d like to work _with_  that AI of yours instead of against her. If you can guarantee an escort to the watchpoint, I can do my job.”

So she’d have to officiate her investigation. Lovely.

“I’ll see what I can do. How can I contact you? ...What do I call you?”

“I’ve sent you an email already. You should really have me set up some protection on your information.” They paused for a moment. “And you can call me Lynx.”

And then her screen went dark again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yall KNOW im not passing up an opportunity to include a canon nonbinary character!!! i love lynx!!!!!!


	17. 02/27/2078 10:20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thank you for reading! your comments and kudos mean the world to me.

 

Winston rubbed at his temples before reviewing his notes for the meeting so far. “So... let me get this straight. You want us to enact an official investigation on the whereabouts of the Sombra collective because you’re  _concerned?”_

Satya’s face burned and she recollected herself as she spoke to the other Overwatch personnel in attendance to the meeting. Her hands clasped behind her back, thumb working into the palm of her prosthetic. “Her and I, we’re allies, we’ve worked together. She’s not done this before, I’m certain she’s in danger. Maybe if we offer her enough pay or protection, she can work for us as a double agent-“

“Even if that were to happen,” Winston interrupted, “all you have to go off of is the word of another hacker?”

“I worked with the omnic before,” Aleksandra interjected, albeit gruffly. She crossed her arms, looking stubborn in her admission. “I don’t like its idea... but it hasn’t done anything particularly bad to warrant doubt.”

“I believe _they_ truly do have an interest in aligning themself with us,” Satya continued. “And if Sombra isn’t interested in joining us, I would at least prefer to guarantee her safety.”

“Aww, don’t you see, Winston?” Lena cooed, leaning her elbows on the conference room table and her legs kicking underneath. “We _have_ to help Satya, it’s love!”

Satya’s jaw dropped, and before she could defend just how professional her relationship to the hacker was, Torbjorn stood and dismissed himself from the meeting. “I don’t like this, you can count me out,” he called behind him.

Brigitte made a frustrated noise from beside where the man had been sitting. “I’m sorry about him, he can be stubborn when it comes to following new members. We can stay behind and defend the Watchpoint if you do decide to send a team.”

“If we send a team to get Lynx, it should be small,” Lena replied. “I can fly us to the rendezvous and Satya can meet up with them.”

“I volunteer,” said Aleksandra, and Satya’s eyebrows raised. “I want to be security,” she defended at the look. “No funny business. Plus, rendezvous is in my homeland, I’d love nothing more than to visit.”

“I too, volunteer,” spoke a new voice in a metallic calm. The omnic monk, Zenyatta, had arrived on the watchpoint with a cyborg man Genji Shimada shortly after Satya’s hire, though the two had been silent throughout the meeting. “Omnic solidarity. Additionally, if anything were to go wrong, I would like to be there as support.”

Genji spoke as well, his arms crossed as he leaned against the doorway. “I endorse this mission. Though the hacker has done wrong in the past, you claim you trust her. That is the first step to forgiveness.”

A pleased murmur spread through the other Overwatch members in attendance and Winston made an exasperated sigh, neatly clacking his papers. “I must remind everyone that we’re under tight guidelines set by the Petras Act. The stunt we pulled in India has us under the heat and careful eye of the UN. The Recall was hasty, and we should count our blessings that we’re still standing.” The scientist cleared his throat. “That said, and I’m thinking logically here, we do need higher cyber defense and members in general...” Satya perked up. “And thinking emotionally, I believe it would be inhumane to leave your friend in danger, and I think we should at least give her a second chance. Let’s do it.”

Satya fought to keep her facial expression professional, but her heart felt as though it was going to burst from gratitude. “Thank you, all. I promise you, it will all work out.”

“That makes a team of four to pick up and secure Lynx Seventeen from where they’re working in... Moscow, correct?” Winston took note of that and adjusted his glasses. “Lena, how soon can you be ready?”

“I’ll take a quick nap and be spry as a bird!” the young woman replied, standing with a salute. “After fueling up the ship we should be good to go.”

“All righty. The rest of you, make preparations as needed for the trip. This is low risk, but Satya and Zenyatta, I believe this is your first time on the field so do take care,” Winston advised. “The rest of you, business will carry on as usual.” And he adjourned the meeting.

“Miss Vaswani,” Zenyatta called as the other members filed out. He gave her a bow of his head. “I feel as though we haven’t been properly introduced, but I’m pleased to take this journey with you.”

Satya smiled warmly. “Thank you for trusting in me.”

The omnic laughed softly. “Love is a phenomenon I have yet to fully understand, but I can tell when I see it. Your heart is in the right place, and that is what matters most.” The sage reply had Satya reeling a bit, and before she could muster a reply he had drifted off.

That was two people now that had called her feelings “love,” and Satya had no idea whether or not to correct them.


	18. 02/27/2078 12:00

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we’re almost at a thousand hits for this fic!!!! can we hit it after this chapter?
> 
> have a great weekend!

Satya had never been in love before.

She doubted that was what it was, though. Growing up, imagining love was an impossibility; Vishkar came first and foremost, always and forever. Maybe one day she could have connected with a faceless coworker and married for the tax benefits, but nothing really beyond that had ever crossed the architect’s mind.

Now that her world was turned upside down, maybe her heart was too.

Satya paced the floors of the Watchpoint’s hangar, her heels clicking rhythmically against the concrete and her face burning as her mind raced a mile a minute. She couldn’t really _love_  Olivia, right? They had never even been on a proper date. Satya didn’t think nursing a woman back to health even half-counted as a date. She didn’t know the hacker that well either, hadn’t spent enough time with her. They’d known each other for, what, two months?

But her smile and her laugh and her quick wit and her jokes and the way she talked about her tech had Satya warm at the memory. Satya wanted to hold her close and make her feel safe again. Olivia cared about her for... some reason, and Satya had the urge to cherish that fact.

“...thinking about?”

Satya blinked, and upon noticing Tracer standing there watching her, blushed deeply.

“I apologize, I didn’t realize you’d come in.”

“‘s alright, I do most of my thinking here too.” Lena approached one of the vehicles in the hangar, a small drop ship that could easily hold four passengers. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Satya worried her bottom lip between her teeth. Sharing her worries, especially before a mission, was supposed to be a good team-building exercise. At least, it was, according to the internet.

“How do you know that you love your girlfriend?” she blurted, artificial fist curling into a fist. God, what a horrible way to phrase that.

Still, Lena smiled softly, her gaze straying from Satya as her thoughts drifted somewhere else. After a moment, she looked back at Satya. “Emily feels like home to me. Like life could throw the worst at me, and I could still find happiness with her at the end of the day. I would give my life to keep her safe.” She paused then, hand on the side of the ship. “...Is Sombra your home?”

Satya sighed softly. “I don’t know. Home isn’t a feeling I don’t think I know anymore.”

Lena gave the other woman a sympathetic smile. “Believe it or not, I know how you feel.”

Satya looked surprised at that. “Oh?”

“Being ripped from time really makes you think you can’t stay in one place for too long,” Lena replied sheepishly, her gaze growing distant. “I’ve been here for a while with no incidents, but. That feeling never really goes away. But being here, with friends and with Overwatch? It helps.” Lena’s fingers grazed the bright accelerator hanging at her chest before she rubbed the back of her neck. “Does that make sense?”

Satya nodded slowly. “Everything is... new. Very new. But maybe I can make a home for myself and see how that feels.”

“That’s a start!” Lena perked up a little. “The next step is making sure your home has all the people you need.” And with that she rounded the drop ship, presumably to fill its fuel tank and prepare for launch.

Satya let out a sigh of relief and sat in the open doorway of the drop ship. Her hands smoothed over her hair before covering her small smile. Maybe what she felt wasn’t love quite yet, but those words were good way to put it.

A start.


	19. 02/28/2078 08:30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! just in case you were wondering what happened here, check out the scrapped version of this fic!

The ride to the rendezvous was uneventful for the most part. However, when the drop ship touched down, Satya realized that she had made a terrible mistake.

“You’re from here, right? How do you live?” Satya hissed at Zaryanova through chattering teeth, Russian snow already lightly dusting her shoulders. Goosebumps pricked her bare arm and she shivered from the biting cold.

Zarya let out a belly laugh as she walked off the drop ship, unzipping her jacket and draping it on the architect’s shoulders. She wore a tank top underneath, but didn’t seem a bit phased by the morning’s cold. “Russian weather is good for the lungs and soul! It is not even that bad.”

Zenyatta departed the ship wearing a thick hooded sweatshirt. “The Shambali’s home in Nepal sees snow as well, but prolonged exposure to the cold is not good for our mechanics.”

Lena laughed from the cockpit. “You three go along, I’ll keep the ship warm! Maybe I’ll make some tea...”

Satya zipped up the big jacket and gave Lena a wave. The team had touched down just outside of Moscow, and planned on meeting Lynx in the heart of the city. Walking the streets, Satya couldn’t help but gawk at the artistic buildings, having never been here before.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Aleksandra asked, pride clear in her voice. “Tradition meets technology.”

Satya nodded in agreement. “I’ve never seen such colorful architecture, I’d love to come back some day to study it.”

“Now, don’t go all Vishkar and steal our ideas!” With a laugh, Aleksandra patted Satya firmly on the back.

Satya didn’t find it as funny, and the look on her face made it clear.

“...Ah. Sorry.” The Russian woman let out a cough, and an awkward silence fell over the three of them.

Zenyatta spoke after a moment. “It must be hard to separate your identify from Vishkar’s reputation.”

Surprisingly, Aleksandra nodded in agreement. “The omnic is right. But with time, things will be better.”

Satya worked her thumb into the palm of her prosthetic to soothe her nerves. “Thank you, both.”

It wasn’t much longer until the group slipped through a few narrow alleys, arriving in approximation to the rendezvous. Already waiting for them, a familiar hooded figure stepped in line and made the group into four.

“I didn’t think you would bring her,” the hacker commented, slipping off their mask and shoving it into a backpack they carried. Their face was indeed that of an omnic’s, and two rabbit-like antennae poked out from their hood.

“Who would do a better job if not me?” Aleksandra asked, though she made no further objections to their comment.

Satya carried on, paging Tracer from a communications device she had received as part of her Overwatch membership. “We’ve received the package, making our way back towards you.”

“Roger that, love!”

And then a bullet grazed right past her ear.

Too many things happened at once: Zaryanova erected a bright bubble to shield the group and get them into cover, Zenyatta made a movement that shrouded Satya’s vision in gold, and her ears couldn’t stop ringing.

She couldn’t hear proper, only her own rushing heartbeat and the distant voices of her teammates trying to talk to her. Presumably, judging by the way Aleksandra had her hand against one ear, she was trying to get Tracer over the comms too. The pain in Satya’s ear was numb, maybe from shock and maybe from Zenyatta’s healing, but it still made her fingers shake as she pulled a hard light visor into existence and activated it.

The job was shaky, but it would have to do. Satya was usually no field agent, especially when dealing with long range combat, but if someone really had tailed them, it was best if she protect her teammates and evacuate. She peeked around the corner of a building in order to get sights on their assailant, but another bullet whizzing by from somewhere above had her ducking her head back into cover.

The architect realized she had been babbling as the ringing in her ears subsided and she was able to hear her surroundings more clearly. “There’s a sniper-“ she was able to articulate, and Aleksandra swore in Russian.

“We have a sniper situation, likely the Widowmaker,” she said into her comm. “Not sure how she tailed us or when, but we need an evac now.”

“That won’t be easy!” Lena’s voice sounded over the comm. “She can shoot me down from here no problem, and I’ll need a clear landing!”

Lynx had a laptop out, their fingers flying over the keyboard as a map lit on their screen. “I’m reading one heat signature in the building across the street on the fourth story, so she’s alone. The street itself should be wide enough for you to land.”

Zenyatta turned his head towards Satya. “Can you utilize your hard light technology as a shield of some sort?”

Satya’s mind raced. “I- theoretically, yes, but with her kind of damage it can’t last long.”

“I only need a tick!” Lena replied. “If you can do it, then do it soon!”

Okay. She could do this, right? The Photon Barrier Deluxe was a defense mechanism only half developed before Vishkar ultimately shut down, should be no problem. Her visor flashed, too, the display warning her that she had barely enough charge in her arm to do something to that scale.

Satya shook her head, hands already working to form hard light. That was no way to think, and she was the smartest Architech Vishkar had. If anyone could do it, it would be her.

Stepping out of cover again, Satya’s arms extended wide, her fingers shaped like “L”s, and a grid spread out before her, growing larger and larger until it the width of it spanned past a whole block. It flashed bright cyan a few times, presumably due to fires from the Widowmaker, but for now it looked like it would hold.

Her teammates looked on, stunned, and there was silence for a moment.

“...Yeah that’ll do it,” Lena eventually said over the comm. “Head to the clearing in the street and I’ll swoop in.”

The four of them did just that and the drop ship flew down just long enough for them all to jump on board. As they ascended and accelerated, Satya’s shield took a few more hits before shattering completely into a million tiny hexagons. Looking out of the drop ship, Satya’s eyes widened as she locked gaze with eight red lenses, glowing bright and trained right on her.


	20. 03/04/2078 09:55

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's been edited! check out the scrapped version of this fic for more info.

“You have a mild case of tinnitus, so I recommend not exposing yourself to any loud noises for the next week.”

“While working on a military base? You demand too much of me, doctor,” Satya remarked with a little grin.

The woman in question laughed and her voice sounded clear and soft, much like a bell. Angela Ziegler, after months of working crisis relief in the Middle East and unsure about the necessity of the Recall, had finally agreed to respond and insisted on giving everyone a standard checkup upon arrival this morning. Satya found that her field name, Mercy, was no exaggeration and she was fond of the doctor immediately.

“As for your arm...” Angela held the prosthetic under a studious eye. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take it into my care for a few hours. You expended all of its charge during your mission in Moscow, correct?”

Satya nodded, legs crossing atop the medical table she sat at. After making the Photon Barrier, her prosthetic had shut down with a spark and not even plugging it into its usual hard light charging station made much of a difference. The last few days had been a struggle and she was glad Angela might be able to fix it. “It’s a Vishkar model, though, there’s none other like it. I ask that you keep its hard light capabilities intact.”

“I’m fairly experienced with complex prosthetic manufacturing. If anyone can get it back into perfect condition, it’s me,” the doctor promised. “In the meantime, why don’t you see how Lynx is doing with their research?”

Satya set off to do just that. With Lynx Seventeen on the Watchpoint, the search for Sombra had become simultaneously more and less productive. More productive in the sense that Lynx knew far better about what they were doing compared to Satya, and took to collaborating with the AI Athena like a duckling to water.

Less productive, however...

“Shit!” they groaned as Satya wandered into the workshop, antennae flicking irritably as they smacked their head against the desk in frustration.

“What’s the matter?” Satya asked to announce her presence, pulling up a stool one-handed and sitting behind them.

“Everywhere I look is a dead end,” they stressed, hands scratching at the back of their head. “Widow’s definitely a key player in this whole op, and chances are she probably tried something in Utopaea and Moscow,” Lynx explained, and then threw their hands towards their computer dramatically, “but there’s virtually no record of Sombra linked to either of Widow’s interventions.”

“What does it say Sombra’s current activity is?” Satya asked, peering over Lynx’s shoulder at their computer.

“Last mission she got officially deployed on was assisting a coup in Venice, but that was months ago, and extremely under the radar. What I’ve scraped from all that is essentially ghost data left over from whatever Sombra decided to wipe,” Lynx replied. “Her current status is on standby, which is weird, right? Even if she had been working behind Talon’s back, they’d need to keep tabs on her. Bureaucracy and all ”

“Not necessarily, if our last conversation is anything to go by,” Satya countered, rubbing her chin with her fingers. “It sounded like she wanted nothing to do with them. If Talon’s databases don’t say where she is… they might not _know_ where she is.”

”Well, okay. Then maybe we’re looking in the wrong place.” Lynx sighed, their antennae going flat. “Okay. Do you have any other idea of where she would be?”

“Mexico,” Satya replied reflexively. “She has a safehouse in Castillo.”

Lynx immediately shook their head. “I already knew about there and checked it at the start. The place is clean.” With a flurry of their fingers on the keyboard they brought up a live view of the streets of Castillo and a blurry image from a while back. Of Satya and Sombra. “It’s a good thing it is. Talon probably found this image too.”

Satya swallowed a lump in her throat and stood up straight so she could pace. “And we’re _sure_ Talon’s a dead end? Maybe, maybe she’s working under their noses. Or, or maybe they _do_ know where she is, and just listed her on standby, because they know we’re looking for her.”

“Could be,” Lynx answered. “I’ll look more into Widowmaker. But…”

“...But?” Satya stopped pacing and arched her eyebrow at the omnic.

Lynx shook their head and began to spin in their office chair. “Never mind. I was gonna say, maybe the two of them are working together to fuck up the paper trail, but that wouldn’t make sense. It’s not like Widowmaker to just act off the record, or against authority in general, so we can rule that one out.”

“What? Why?”

“She’s Talon’s weapon, is why. Everything she does for them is usually recorded. She doesn’t really do things her own style. She’s been brainwashed so thoroughly, free will might not even be a concept she understands. Helping Sombra is super left field”

Satya bristled at the omnic’s words and she desperately wished she had her prosthetic to stim with. “...You know, just a few months ago, one could say the same about me.”

Lynx’s antennae perked and they stopped spinning so that they could shake their head in apology. “No, that’s- you’re different. You really don’t want to know what’s ticking in the Widow’s head.”

“Maybe she snapped out of it, same as me,” the architect retorted. And then her mind sparked with an idea, her brow furrowing as she thought back. “But… maybe there’s something else to it. That night, Sombra- she played me a phone call. Widowmaker and Sanjay didn’t want ‘the big guy’ to know about my snooping into Vishkar, so this might be similar.”

Lynx’s antennae swiveled as they processed that new information. “A phone call? That can be traced. Hell, Sombra already apparently traced it. We just need a source.”

Emboldened by this new thread, they dove back into typing at their laptop. “Let me look into this,” they said, fingers dancing with renewed energy. Satya figured the conversation was over for now.

Not that Satya was helping much on the digital side anyway. For now, she could make herself some coffee and strategize.


	21. 03/23/2078  03:30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's been edited too! make sure you check out the scrapped version of this fic!!

“Oh my god.”

“What is it?” Satya sat up with a yawn, hair wild from tossing and turning. She’d been spending her nights in the Watchpoint’s common areas, on the couch no less, working with Lynx and getting desperate with each new dead end. It had been over three weeks of nearly endless searching, and Satya was nearing her wits’ end.

“I found her.”

Those three words had Satya on her feet now and she crowded in behind Lynx. " _What?_ "

On their computer screen, Lynx highlighted a blurry picture of what looked like a woman darting across a courtyard. She had brown curly hair that faded to blonde at the edges, and one of her hands was moving in an arc lit by purple hexagons and lines.

“That’s her. Where is this?” Satya fidgeted with her hair, combing her fingers through it as best as she could.

“Off the coast of France, an old place by the name of Chateau Guillard,” Lynx explained. “This picture was mined off of the security cameras a few days ago, but from the looks of it, Widowmaker spends her summers here. Sombra probably figured the place would be safe for now. I’m glad I caught this before Sombra wiped everything on the island.”

“Then that’s it. We have to go now.”

“Hold up, hold up,” Lynx warned. “We can’t just jump into this headfirst. I’ve actually been meaning to ask, but... what if Sombra doesn’t want to come back?”

The question had Satya’s gut burning. “Well, she certainly doesn’t want to work with Talon. It’s not good for her.”

“Then why wouldn’t she try contacting you if she was safe? There’s nothing in this photo to actually confirm that Talon doesn’t know she’s there.”

“I don’t know,” Satya replied, her brow furrowing.

“And did she ever tell you her motive for helping you with Vishkar?”

“Stop it,” the architect snapped, getting to her feet. She was tired, and her patience was running so, so thin. “I would think someone who relied on my word to get here wouldn’t be asking so many questions.”

Lynx gave a halfhearted shrug, not wanting to stir up Satya even more. “Sorry, I’m a hacker. It’s my job to ask questions.”

Their words were achingly familiar and Satya gathered her things with a heavy heart. “I’m going somewhere else. Give the information you found to Winston.”

* * *

 

Satya’s feet took her to the engineer workshop. Without Lindholm’s usual tinkering, the space was empty. Quiet. Perfect.

Her mind was racing too fast now and she knew that going home to her apartment would leave her tossing and turning all night, so the architect rolled open a blank blueprint. Design would be her distraction.

She drew and wrote and calculated different designs, falling into a familiar rhythm. With her prosthetic repaired and at full charge, it was almost effortless to pull out prototype after prototype of hard light. Satya decided her turrets were too flimsy for field work, and adjusted their settings until she was happy with a bulkier model with a stronger beam. With a few tests, she found that she was able to deploy them as projectiles now. Another bonus.

While she was at it... the Vishkar teleporter needed some tender loving care as well. It had so much potential, but in its current state, it took too long to charge and was a waste of hard light energy. Yes, her improved version had a time limit on it, but the architect found that this allowed it to be so much more versatile and portable.

Her gun needed tweaking too. Satya wasn't ever one to primarily rely on it, usually leaving her turrets to do the defending, but if she were to be on the field more, her gun ought to protect her too. After running some schematics, Satya decided the best adjustment would be to increase its secondary fire rate and trade its auto-aiming beam for a shield depleting one.

She had no idea what time it was when she stood and wiped her forehead of sweat, but when she did, she figured it must be nearing morning. Because Satya noticed she had an audience.

“Couldn’t sleep?” asked Lena, standing in the doorway to the workshop with a gentle smile and two cups of coffee in her hands.

“I’m- Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in,” Satya replied, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

“No worries, I wasn’t here long. Noticed you working like the dickens and didn’t want to disturb you.” Lena handed her one of the mugs. The coffee had way too much sugar for Satya’s usual taste, but the sweetness in this moment was comforting.

“We have to go to France,” Satya answered after her sip of coffee. “I figured I would improve my hard light repertoire to get ready-“ And that made her pause. Even when trying to distract herself, she had subconsciously been working towards preparing for some kind of confrontation.

If Lena noticed the blunder, she didn’t comment. “France, eh? You found a lead on Sombra?”

Satya nodded and avoided eye contact then, Lynx’s words echoed back into her mind and she couldn’t help but wallow in them. “Do you think she’ll want me to come, though?” she wondered, her throat far tighter than she wanted it to be.

“Oh, Satya,” Lena cooed, moving closer to place a hand gingerly at the architect’s back. “Of course. She’s been waiting for you, I know it,” the young woman promised. “There’s a reason she hasn’t come to you yet, but it isn't because she doesn’t want to see you.”

Satya gave a small smile, a spark of hope in her chest clearing the doubt. “You mean it?”

The Brit gave Satya a playful wink and an encouraging smile. “If I was Sombra, there’s no way I could ever forget about you.”


	22. 01/??/2078 XX:XX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the third arc of this story. the next few chapters will deal with themes of imprisonment, torture, and brainwashing. it's also been edited, though, so check out the scrapped version of this fic too!

Sombra didn’t think that today would mark the end for her. She was so, so terribly wrong.  
  
Once the two women stepped out onto the streets of Utopaea, the hacker held herself differently, less confidently, in order to blend in to the other citizens of the city. She stuck close to Satya’s side as they approached the Vishkar skyscraper to figure out what was going on. But as the streets got more and more concentrated with people the closer they got to the building, Olivia discreetly activated her camouflage and fell out of view.  
  
It wasn’t until Satya had been swarmed with reporters and journalists in the streets for all of the action that Olivia was caught off guard. With a surprising tug to the back of her jacket, the hacker was pulled out of the crowd and into an alleyway, where a cold hand held her against the brick wall and the colder metal of a pistol met her neck.  
  
_"What_  did you do?” hissed the voice of the Widowmaker, her image appearing from a similar camouflage that Sombra typically used. Her octo-lensed visor was activated and trained right on Olivia.  
  
The hacker gave a dry laugh, her own camouflage dropping. The invisibility was useless under her Infra-sighted gaze. “Going stealthy and using a handgun? You trying to steal my image, Amelie?” she asked with a grin.

The metal of the gun dug in sharper. “Why are you working with the Vishkar woman? Are you trying to make our jobs more difficult? Are you trying to _expose_ our interests with the company?” the Widow interrogated.  
  
“I like a challenge,” Olivia said dismissively, angling her face away from the gun and Amelie’s gaze. “Anyway, Korpal was too ambitious. He would have given us away regardless, so I took the initiative and cut the weak link.”  
  
“You’re lying. I can hear your heart racing.”  
  
“Ha! What can’t that thing do?” Olivia chuckled nervously and raised a finger to tap her nail against Widowmaker’s visor.  
  
The sniper snarled and curled her finger around the trigger. “Talk.”  
  
Olivia didn’t have to. A single gunshot rang from down the street and it made her jolt, looking desperately around the corner to catch anything. Under the other woman’s grip, however, Olivia couldn’t move very far.  
  
Amelie herself hadn’t been phased by the incident, and instead cooed softly, a wicked smile on her lips. Her visor retracted and Olivia could see the malice hidden behind her eyes. “Ah, so you’re sweet on the Vishkar woman,” she deduced.  
  
Olivia’s expression hardened and she stared the spider down. “You’ll leave her alone,” she spat.  
  
Widowmaker let out a soft chuckle and replied, “You don’t tell me what to do.” She reared back her hand then, and with wide eyes, Olivia ducked out of the way, narrowly missing a pistol whip from the sniper.

The movement freed Olivia from Widowmaker’s grasp and with a quick reflex, she hacked Widowmaker’s abilities. And with a start, she took off down the alley. She had to get the fuck out of Widow’s way, had to get back to Satya to warn her. Her hack didn’t last long at all, though, and the telltale sign of Widowmaker shooting her venomous mine had Olivia halting in her tracks. But it was too late. She tripped over the tiny vial, venom clouding her vision and sending her into a coughing fit.

Widowmaker approached at a leisurely pace, heels clicking quietly against the alleyway pavement. She picked Olivia up with a surprising strength, grasping the hacker by her jacket collar. “That was a foolish move. You’re only making it harder on yourself.”

Olivia sucked in a breath through clenched teeth before spitting on the sniper. Widow rolled her eyes, and with trained grace and strength, punched Olivia right in the face.

* * *

The sound of a thick pamphlet of paper hitting a metal table jolted Olivia from unconsciousness and her eyes locked with those of Gabriel Reyes.

  
“What the hell is this?” she asked, and when she tried to move her hands she realized they were bound to the cold metal chair she was sat in. The surrounding room was dark, too, lit only by a lamp suspended from the ceiling. Olivia couldn’t see more than a few feet, but she guessed that the room was fairly small.  
  
“You were getting sloppy, so I started doing my own research on you,” the man replied, decay and smoke wrecking his vocals. “Exposing our presence in Dorado. Embezzlement. Snitching on your fellow members to the authorities. Sabotage of the Volskaya mission.” He flipped open the pamphlet and on the front page was a blurry photo of her and Satya Vaswani walking the streets of Castillo. “Vishkar.”  
  
Olivia paled, and she let out a chuckle. “Come on, now, you know I’m just playing around like I always do. Vishkar’s fall is just a coincidence. She’s my pawn, even.”  
  
“The company was a major supplier for us, and you want me to believe you were only caught in the crossfire?” Reyes’ fist curled against the table. “We’re supposed to be terrorists. We weren’t so sure about you, and after this? This _fling?_  Something needs to be done about you.”  
  
The hacker’s heart slammed against her chest at the implications of that. “What- since when was anything like that decided?”  
  
“Oh, you didn’t hear?” The man flipped the paperwork shut and tapped it with his index finger for emphasis. “We’re going traditional with our paperwork now. Didn’t want you snooping around our databases and ruining the surprise.” He slid the files across the table to her, as if she wasn’t bound and able to read them herself. “Plus, with all the mess you’ve been making, I believe it’s better for all of us if our boss doesn’t find out this early about your… blunders. Really, what I’m doing for you is a kindness.”  
  
_“Gabe, you don’t have to do this,"_ Olivia tried in Spanish now as a last-ditch effort. Plus, who knows who else was listening to the conversation. _“I’ve always been like this, really, it’s all just a coincidence. Me and her, it’s not-_  Es inofensiva.“  
  
“Love’s not harmless, quit fooling yourself. It rots you from the inside out. You've been fucking around, and I'm not-” Smoke seeped from Gabriel's clenched teeth and he rubbed his temples. After a moment, the man just sighed and stood up straight. "We're not going to let you screw around anymore." The smoke shrouded him, covering his decaying face with a white bone mask.  He turned, opening the door leading out and flooding light into the room. "Besides, you should be much happier soon."  
  
“What- Why?”  
  
“Right, you don’t know. You’re getting _promoted."_  
  
The single word had Olivia’s stomach dropping to her feet, and before she could reply, the door slammed shut and she was left alone in the room.

* * *

Begging was a pathetic notion. Only the weakest, most groveling creatures ever needed to resort to that. Olivia loved nothing more than to bask in the glory of a good beg, watching those beneath her snivel and plead with no other options left for them.  
  
And yet, here Olivia was, doing just the same.  
  
But anything was better than getting promoted.  
  
To be promoted was to devote yourself entirely to Talon, either voluntarily or not. Sure, you got more benefits; paid vacation leaves, higher salary, more secure position in the organization. But the tradeoff was to lose all sense of morality. To stop asking questions, to devote yourself unconditionally, to always put Talon before yourself. To be their weapon, to be like Widowmaker or to some extent, Reaper. There were, of course, many others in higher positions there of their own evil desires, but Olivia had already resigned herself to the fact that she didn’t really have a choice anymore.  
  
She had been alone in this holding cell for hours, maybe a day, maybe longer, given nothing but water and a nutritional pill to keep her alive. Her binds were a thick rope and her chair was metal, and there was nothing in the room for her to hack. Not that she would be able to hack her way out of here anyway. From what she could feel, she’d been stripped from all her gear and left in drab, gray clothing. Her eye throbbed from when Amelie had clocked her, her hair was getting greasy and discolored, and her mind was burnt out at this point, tired of thinking of escape plans that were bound to fail.  
  
And when the door had opened once more, Olivia realized that her clock had run out.  
  
The lanky silhouette of Dr. Moira O’Deorain sauntered inside, donning an almost comically large pair of medical gloves and wheeling in a gurney. “It’s time, Sombra,” the woman said, her voice carrying no sympathy.  
  
“We don’t have to do this,” Olivia warned, heartbeat accelerating as the doctor drew closer. Her voice was weak, almost too quiet, and she found it even more pathetic than she had thought. “I’ll be good.”  
  
“We’ve given you too many chances to be _good."_  Moira untied her, only to move her to the gurney and retie her there. Olivia didn’t fight it, knowing that it would only spell out worse for her. Without any of her usual equipment, she knew she was no match for the doctor anyway.  
  
“ _De-_ mote me, then, I don’t need to be a big player anymore.”  
  
“You and I both know that you’d only cause more trouble for us that way.” And then Moira began to wheel the hacker out of the room, and down a clean, tiled hallway. Nothing about this place was familiar to Olivia, and she had no idea about how she was going to get out of this. “Just stop resisting,” Moira continued, “and we’ll all be much happier.”  
  
“Please, you don’t have to do this,” Olivia tried again.  
  
“I’m afraid I do.”  
  
And as they arrived to a bright white operating room and the doctor began her process, Olivia’s begging continued and continued and continued.

 

 

And then it stopped.


	23. 02/??/2078 XX:XX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is where the plot heavily deviates from what i originally wrote, and you can read the old plot in the scrapped version of this work.

 Sombra’s eyes flashed open and she sat up with a gasp.  
  
She looked around the room, an operating room to be exact, only to find that she was alone. Her face hurt, whether from struggling with Moira or from something else, Sombra didn’t know. Her spine ached something awful too, but that was typical, especially if Moira had fucked with her tech there in some way.  
  
Her memory of the operation was a blur, but she does remember initially passing out from the pain, not from any kind of anesthetic. How humane of Moira to do her like that.  
  
Carefully, Sombra lifted her hands to see what the changes were. First, she was surprised to see that her skin was still brown, not some eerie blue like Lacroix. She reached around her back to gingerly feel at the mechanics in her spine, but each divot and wire and plate didn’t feel particularly out of the norm, although they felt a little tender. And then she realized that she was completely unrestrained.  
  
Maybe they weren’t done with the operation. Maybe they were on break and hadn’t expected Sombra to wake up. Then why, as she examined herself further, was she feeling just fine? Why would they stop with no work done?  
  
Quietly, Sombra slipped off the operating table to stand, the metal betraying her with a creak. But still, no one came to stop her. There was a mirror embedded in the wall, and Sombra knew enough to know that a viewing room was behind the mirror. Maybe they were watching her and this was all a test. God, she looked awful though. Her drab gray clothes did nothing to flatter her, or hide her bruises and scars. She desperately needed a shower, and the circles under her eyes were darker than ever. Her hair lacked its trademark style, too. The undercut was overgrown, messily spilling over her metal enhancements; the ends were split and now a dull bleached blonde, just barely exposing the thin cosmetic wires that gave her hair its usual glow. Sombra grimaced at how the hairdo now clashed with her still bright irises. In its current state, it'd need to be redone entirely.  
  
When she finally turned away and opened the door out, however, the room behind the one way glass was empty.  
  
Empty wasn’t the right word, because there was something of importance there: a box, tucked away under a desk and labeled “CONTENTS TO BE FILED INTO EVIDENCE”.  
  
The box was cardboard and easy to open, and Sombra chuckled with her snooping. It was her gear. Everything was there, her hacking gloves, machine pistol, and even her pack of spare translocators. Thank god. The only thing she needed now was a better outfit, but. That was fine.  
  
Quickly, she equipped everything she would need to escape this place. She tried to translocate, but immediately got feedback that none of her devices were currently active. With a sigh, Sombra resorted to Plan B, and activated her camouflage before booking it the hell out of the room.  
  
She didn’t know where she was, but as Sombra found and elevator and hacked it, she realized she was at Talon’s base in Venice. She’d been to the base many times, and even this exact elevator; this operating floor was either new or it had escaped her previously. No matter. She knew how to get around and that’s all that mattered.  
  
There were quite a few Talon operatives milling the base, but none seemed to notice as she slipped through their groups and right out the front door.  
  
Thank god she was in Venice. Sombra had a safe house not too far from here, cause like hell was she going to voluntarily keep her shit on Talon’s base. And risk them snooping? No thank you. With a deep breath, she took off down the street.  
  
Racing down alleyways, vaulting over dumpsters, and leaping over chain link fences, Sombra wondered just how long she had been out as the setting sun lit her path. A whole day??? A week? ...Longer? It didn’t really matter, as long as she got out of this damn city.  
  
Eventually the hacker arrived at an old, unassuming storage unit and slipped inside. All of her stuff was here, perfect. Her safe house was still that: safe. It was no Castillo, but the room housed a computer with internet capabilities sitting upon a table, along with a cabinet of various things she might need in an emergency. Tinkering with one of her spare translocators, Sombra grunted in frustration as the device flashed and pulsed slowly. It would need to warm up before she could connect to her disabled ones. She stuck an ethernet cable in it to help speed up the process.  
  
In the meantime, Sombra needed to get back into contact with Satya, if only so that she could apologize for her absence. Sombra flushed and looked down at her outfit, before grabbing the only spare outfit around. It was old; a gray and red version of her purple jacket from back when she worked even closer with Talon. But... it would do. It even matched her shitty state of hairdo.  
  
But when Sombra attempted to call Satya, her mind drew a blank. How could she get in contact with the other woman again?

...Where was Satya?

Sombra furrowed her brow. Her lapse of clarity must be leftovers from whatever Moira did to her, because after a moment of hard thinking, Sombra remembered the apartment in Utopaea.

A phone call to Satya’s place wouldn’t work, though, and Sombra really was pressed for time. The sooner she could get out of the city the better. She typed into her arm and searched through different methods of communication, before finally hacking into the street cam across the street from Satya’s apartment. Having found the right place, Sombra projected herself through the window.  
  
Boxes littered the place, many packed up and taped, and with a stone in her gut Sombra worried that Satya was gone. But luckily, no, the other woman was home. Satya hadn’t noticed her yet though, was too busy cooking, it seemed.  
  
What would she say? Would Satya even want to see her anymore? With Vishkar supposedly out of the way and Satya apparently moving, was there even a place for Sombra in her life?  
  
Satya deserved a goodbye, at the very least.  
  
With a swallow, Sombra stepped closer. “Looks good,” she managed.  
  
Unfortunately, that seemed to startle Satya and she spilled cake batter all over herself. But when Satya turned, the look on her face told Sombra she really had been missed. She gave a nervous grin in return. “Miss me?”  
  
_“Olivia.”_  Satya tried to hug Sombra, and she wanted with all her heart to actually be there.  
  
“I’m sorry, linda, I’m not actually here. Well. There. I can’t say where I am,” Sombra lamented. She couldn’t put Satya in further danger than she already might be. “I don’t have much time, but long story short I’m with Talon, they’ve got their noses all up in my ass and I don’t know when I’m going to be able to come back,” she rushed.  
  
Satya stepped back. “...I see.” The disappointment  was clear in her voice and it made Sombra’s heart ache. “Why not just call?”  
  
As Sombra explained herself, she could hear a crash outside of her unit, and knew immediately that she was being looked for. “ _Shit._ Gotta go, don’t wait up for me.” Not waiting for Satya’s goodbye, Sombra ejected herself from the street cam.  
  
And then her door crashed open, too.  
  
It was Widowmaker, her visor activated and trained on Sombra, but surprisingly, Moira was there too, and she was giving Sombra a slow clap. “It’s almost cute how you thought you could get away from us.” The doctor tilted her head and pursed her lips, almost looking upset. “We weren’t even done.”  
  
“What did you do to me?” Sombra asked slowly. Her translocator was almost ready, so she would just need to keep talking. And then move smart, and fast.  
  
Luckily the doctor loved to talk about her sick line of work. “You won’t understand afterwards, so I’ll pity you and give you the basics. You’re a... delicate subject, and we have to approach your promotion different than we did with Amelie here. We could wipe her clean no problem, but _you,”_  Moira smiled, her lips conveying a sickly warmth, “your mind and your skills are far too precious to sacrifice to a simple wipe. We just had to work on rewriting your loyalties. The process is tedious, slow. We’ve been working for so long and yet we’ve hardly begun!” The doctor clasped her hands together. “Oh, it’s a shame you’ve woken up early, though. We've only just started erasing _her_ from your memories.”  
  
"You..." The concept struck a nervous chord in Sombra. She must have been under the knife longer than she originally thought. "You were going to take Satya away from me."

"Of course." Moira smiled. "Our previous attempts in kidnapping her went so fabulously thanks to your assistance, and now that she'll be working for Overwatch, the concept of hurting her isn't something we can play with lightly. So, we thought, if we couldn't blackmail you with her safety how else could we regain your loyalty? Well, why not remove her from the equation altogether?"

Sombra's gaze darkened at the possibility of what could happen to her if she stayed any longer. Luckily, she didn’t have to stew in the thought long. Her translocator beeped and lit up purple from across the room, and with a smirk Sombra gave Moira a shrug. “Well, doctor. How are you gonna keep working on what you can’t catch?” And then she cloaked herself and dashed for her device.  
  
The unfortunate thing about turning against your coworkers is that they already know your tricks. Moira didn’t have sights on Sombra, but Amelie did. The sniper darted forward, snatching the translocator before Sombra could. With a curse, Sombra used her momentum to slide down and trip Amelie, causing the device to skitter across the floor of the unit. Sombra's heart sank as Moira's foot closed over the top of it, her right hand gathering a swirl of dark energy. "Give it up, dear."  
  
Sombra's fists tightened, and she knew that if she didn't act  _now_ she was doomed. Her tech couldn't handle an EMP at its current state, but it didn't matter. It was now or never. Before anyone could react, Sombra slammed her hand against her arm, and the wires etched into her glove grew brighter and louder until they set off a pulse that made Sombra's ears ring. In the blur, Moira's gloves flickered and she cursed, and Amelie shoved her hands against her visor in an agonizing yell. Sombra was visible again, but it didn't matter. She lept for her translocator, punched in the teleport command, and disappeared.


	24. 02/08/2078 XX:XX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the new plot! this chapter still deals with mild brainwashing themes and surgical leftovers but i’m much happier with where this is going.

It took hours for the headache to clear.

Translocating in a rapid panic wasn’t ideal, since Sombra didn’t have the luxury of holing up in a safe house and tinkering at another broken translocator. Her destination was random, and could have been a city or two away, or across the globe. So she ran, her ears still ringing from the EMP,  and the gloves on her hands overheated as she gripped herself tightly. Her spine hurt and so did her skull, and every bone in her body ached for some kind of rest.

It was raining when she arrived. Her vision was blurry for a moment, but eventually the formless, bright shapes in front of her became Chinese neons in the form of urban street signs.

China. No. China _town._ Los Angeles. The streets at night were deserted at the moment, the only accompaniment the hacker had was the patter of rain against the asphalt and the occasional rush of spaced out, distant traffic. Even in winter, no one wanted to be out when the rain came down.

Sombra let out a slow sigh, and then a deep body shudder. In this weather, she figured she would need shelter, pronto. She looked up, checking that the device she’d translocated to was still securely and secretly attached to the street light that was shining down on her, and with a satisfied nod she jumped up to retrieve it. It was in good condition despite the hasty arrival, but there was no way she could leave it there and chance being followed. Better to find somewhere new in the area to stash it. Stepping down from the lightpost and over to the cover of a closed off news stand, Sombra hit her fist against her gloved arm. No response. For all purposes at the moment, her tech was on standby. She should really consider herself lucky that the teleport spit her out somewhere in one piece.

At least, she hoped she was in one piece.

Her tech not working did present another immediate problem, though. No hacking meant she had no money.

She’s worked in worse conditions. Typically, a hypertrain station would still be open at these hours, and with that, Sombra swiped a map from the stand and set off down the street. It was probably a good thing her cosmetic tech was still defunct, too. Less chance of getting tracked down. Being in the United States might work to her advantage; going to Mexico was a dead giveaway, but being relatively close wasn’t necessarily a bad idea. Hiding in plain sight has worked before, it could work again.

It didn’t take long to reach a station. The only one working at the moment was a single guard, and Sombra slipped into a bathroom when they were looking the other way. Prying open her hacking gloves, Sombra could see that the wires were totally fried from the EMP. She knew, in her heart, that it wouldn’t be an easy fix, either. The cybernetics embedded into her spine still sparked from the ill prepared pulse, and she should really count herself lucky those weren’t completely fried too. That could have killed her.

Or worse.

Clearing the thought from her mind, Sombra furrowed her brow at the bathroom mirror. She looked like crap, and if she was going to get anywhere unnoticed, she’d have to blend in.

First was the face. The hacker grimaced at old makeup still smeared on her eyelids and slowly, carefully, she cleaned her face with paper towels and lukewarm sink water. Nothing much could be done about her old bruises, only time or technology could help.

Then came the hair. It was split, greasy, unkempt. It looked like garbage. Slowly, Sombra unbraided the thread-thin cosmetic wires throughout the long sections of her hair. Most of them had been disconnected from the surgery, and others fried along with her gloves. And then her fingers grazed over something that made her heart jump. She parted her hair to get a better look in the mirror at the scar that was running down her scalp and parallel to the metal enhancements she’d had from before. It was shaped like a zipper, and with a churn in her stomach Sombra fixed her hair to cover it up again.

“Fuck you, Moira,” she spat at her own mirror image.

After combing her fingers through her hair and deciding it looked neat and yet uncharacteristic enough, Sombra looked around the bathroom. The unisex single stall was nothing special, but with a smirk Sombra spotted a grate in the ceiling above the sink. After climbing up and prying it off, the hacker hoisted herself up into the vents with ease.

Even being a master of espionage, the metal vents creaked under her weight and Sombra had to flinch as she crawled along them. But the guard working the station didn’t seem to notice, not even when Sombra leapt down into their booth from above and knocked them out with a single blow to the back of their neck.

“Up your security team,” Sombra muttered, stepping over the guard to get into their computer. Already unlocked with a game of Solitaire partially finished, the computer was fairly standard by the looks of it. After deactivating the security cameras and scrubbing the last ten minutes of security footage, Sombra was sure the computer wouldn’t mind if she borrowed a few measly wires from it. She also nabbed a pen, a screwdriver, a few sticky notes, and the guard’s hypertrain pass from their wallet. And twenty American dollars.

As she strolled out of the booth and towards the hypertrain platforms, Sombra was sure that if anyone was waiting for a train right now, they’d either be homeless or so tired from working late that she wouldn’t be bothered while fixing her gloves.

“Well if it ain’t the devil herself.”

...Or if she was _lucky,_  someone who happened to be both.

The man who greeted Sombra had been lying on a concrete platform bench until she’d walked in, and even with her silent footsteps he’d managed to hear her. He’d tilted up a wide brimmed stetson from his face to make eye contact with her, and then immediately lowered it again. He couldn’t have been too much older than Sombra, though the way he dressed made him look centuries older.

“What are the odds?” Sombra crossed her arms, standing behind the man and tapping her foot against the platform. “A hacker and a cowboy meet for a train. That’s gotta be a joke somewhere.”

Jesse McCree just let out a snort from under his hat. “Don’t tell me you’re not here on purpose.”

“I have a life outside of antagonizing you. I’ve been very busy lately, you know.” Sombra leaned against one of the station pillars and glanced up at the arrival screens. The next train wasn’t for fifteen minutes. “What _are_ you doing in LA?”

“...Also been busy.” The cowboy waved a gloved hand dismissively. “If you don’t know now, ‘m not gonna tell you. I’m kind of impressed I managed to slip this one past you.”

“Don’t put yourself so high, I don’t need to keep tabs on you every second of the day.” Sombra rolled her eyes. “....Though, now you’ve got me interested.”

“Nope, don’t work like that.” Sombra could practically hear Jesse’s smirk from under his hat. “If you want info, you gotta give me some in return.”

Sombra huffed. “Reyes is alive.”

“Told me that one last time.”

“So’s Ana Amari.”

“Been there, done that.”

“The moon landing was real.”

“Debunked that one.”

“I’m gay.”

“Ain’t we all.” Jesse tipped his hat up at that one and grinned. “That all you got?”

Sombra grit her teeth and let out a slow sigh. “I quit Talon.”

The cowboy sat up. “Wait, what? Really?”

“That’s…. why I’m laying low for right now,” Sombra replied, her gaze sliding off to the wall.

“That’s why you look like dog shit.”

“Polite.”

“They lookin’ for you?”

“I’ve told you enough, cowman.” Sombra gripped her gloves in her hands. “Give me the scoop.”

Jesse let out a sigh and rolled his eyes, holding his hat to his heart. “Such a charmer. I’m heading home.”

“That cannot be all.”

“Caught wind of some old ties stirring up trouble, but… there’s something bigger. Y’know what Echo is?”

Sombra grinned. “Course.”

“Rumor has it, Deadlock’s looking for it. You and I both know that it wouldn’t be great if it fell into their hands, so I’m headed to their turf to get the jump on em. Just gotta pin down where Echo’s been ping ponged to.”

Sombra sat on the bench with an even wider grin. “You don’t know? Sounds like you need some help.”

Jesse’s eyebrows arched. “You and me, working together? What do you get out of this?”

“A place to lie low for a minute. I have some… updates, I need to make, and honestly until things settle down, I could use the protection.”

“Don’t drag me into your mess just cause it’s convenient for you.” Jesse dug a cigar from his pocket and lit it with a flick of his prosthetic fingers. He took a long drag and let the smoke float up to the concrete ceiling of the platform. “You’re running from something, I can tell.”

“Uh, duh. Talon, remember?” Sombra twisted her finger near her head.

“Nah, not just that. Where were you gonna go?”

“I have safe houses all over, I was going to go dark and do odd jobs until everyone forgot-“ Sombra blinked. “Forgot about me. Oh my god, Satya.” In her panic, Sombra had reverted to her classic lay-low mindset and hadn’t even considered asking for help. “No, no. I… can’t.”

Sombra looked down at her hands in her lap. “I can’t. If I go to her, they’re just going to try to hurt her again.”

“Oof.”

Sombra’s gaze trained on Jesse like knives and he raised his hands in defense. “This is why I don’t open up to people,” she barked.

“I’m just not your therapist,” he replied, and then after a moment, offered her his cigar.

She took a drag with a subtle nod and looked toward the ceiling. “Listen, let me help you with this Echo thing. You can benefit from my talents, I can breathe for a moment, and then? I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Fine. But where will you go after?”

The two of them looked up as the distant rumble of the approaching train sounded down the tunnel. As the train pulled up to the platform, Sombra stood and offered the cowboy her hand. “Like I would tell you.”

She would figure it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for all intents and purposes, any details about ashe and echo will be wildly out of left field, simply because i don’t agree about how they fit into canon and this is my story


	25. 03/??/2078 XX:XX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GAHHHHH THANKS FOR WAITING SO LONG!!! ive been very busy with school and life in general and i havent even been playing overwatch to be quite honest. anyway take this
> 
> i dont have a beta reader so pointing out mistakes is much appreciated!!

For a while, Sombra was waiting for a backstab that would never come.

But what she found after sleeping too many nights with one eye open was that Jesse McCree was as honorable as one with his reputation could be. Collaborating with the cowboy was… annoying at times, sure, but the man was soaked in skill and so far stayed true to his word. He could charm his way out of most situations, and shoot his way out of the rest. He knew when to blend in, and when to stand out. Sombra had to admit it was admirable. In another world, the hacker could see herself giving up her profession and riding off into the sunset with him on a wild stallion.

But she wasn’t that kind of woman, and he wasn’t that kind of man. And they weren’t riding horses together, but train hopping and dodging any kind of detection to stay ahead of the game.

And, technically, she still wasn’t one of the good guys.

It ate at her, the knowledge that she couldn’t go to Satya. At first, sure, she had figured that staying away was to protect Satya. That maybe, with all this Vishkar business behind her, Satya could try her shot at a normal life. But after she stopped in Phoenix and caught up on the news, Sombra knew better.

Overwatch was much better protection for Satya than she could ever be.

By now she must have watched Satya’s press conference in Utopaea a hundred times, sometimes with a lighter heart, with hope for what things could have been. But mostly the old footage just stood as a reminder that Sombra let her down.

Finding and watching the broadcast was one of the first things Sombra had done when her gloves were fixed. Well, “fixed” was an overstatement. The gloves had internet connection, basic computer hacking capabilities, and invisibility, but they were nowhere close to their full potential. She couldn’t hack people or for that matter translocate, and even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t just leave McCree when they had a deal. 

It was hard when all Sombra had to go off of was a few stolen parts and her own skill. And McCree wouldn’t let her “acquire” better parts from any of their trains, or from the shitty hotel room they were holed up in now. He wouldn’t even let her stock up on ammo for her pistol.

So she managed with what she could.

“Would you ever go back to Overwatch?” she wondered aloud, pocketing the footage for now and instead projecting files related to their current mission in the air.

“Depends on how this mission goes,” McCree answered. He was standing at the balcony of the room, cigar smoke trailing from his fingers. “Finding Echo could really turn give them an edge, and they might actually be happy enough to do something about my bounty.”

“I smell doubt.” Weaving her way through train schedules and shipment logs, Sombra furrowed her brow. “You know, if I was at full capacity, I’d be able to find it in a heartbeat.”

“Would you-“ McCree sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “For god’s sake, no. This was one of the few places that’d take us, no questions, so I don’t wanna let you strip the walls of this place and cost me a damn bath.”

“Priss.” Though, Sombra could admit, being able to properly freshen up instead of using public or train bathrooms was nice. “They wouldn’t even notice if I took anything.”

The cowboy flicked ash off his cigar into the open night air, his foot tapping rapidly. “They’re nice folk,” he replied. “What would you even take?”

Sombra’s heart skipped a beat. She was breaking him, but she couldn’t jump the gun just yet. “I need a set of conduit wires, a few motherboards and a new GPU. Just to handle some buffer and get my gloves’ processing power more compatible with my internal technology.”

“And a flux capacitor on top? English, missy.”

Sombra rolled her eyes and tapped the back of her palm. “I need more computer brain power to make my hacks faster and prettier.”

McCree chewed at the inside of his cheek before letting out a long exhale. “How would you get them?”

Sombra grinned. “You won’t like my answer.”

* * *

The plan was simple. McCree would sweet talk the woman down at the front desk while Sombra would slip invisible into her office and snag her computer’s graphics card. The computer would function fine without it… well, if one considered slow and glitchy to be “fine.”

Once inside, Sombra pried off the back of the computer and almost drooled. The desktop’s GPU was definitely on the newer side, and she almost felt bad taking it. Almost. Just from a glance she knew the part wasn’t custom built, so it likely wasn’t installed by someone who knew their shit, and probably wouldn’t notice it was gone for a hot minute. There were other parts there just waiting for Sombra to take, but she knew if she took them it would compromise the functionality of the computer and risk her getting noticed. With a soft sigh, she counted her losses and took the card.

After slipping out of the office, Sombra watched as Jesse laughed along with the woman at the front desk about some old tale he was spinning. By the way he smiled and talked with her, she would think the two had known each other for years if she didn’t know better. It brought a dull ache to Sombra’s heart, and more than ever she missed the companionship of Satya.

Sombra let out a soft huff and sifted that emotion away to wallow in later. She approached the counter, tapping McCree’s left shoulder three times: their signal that the operation was a success. The cowboy made a show of checking his watch and feigning shock at how late it was getting, and together he and Sombra retreated to the elevator back up to their room. Once the elevator doors slid shut, Sombra uncloaked herself and held up the graphics card for Jesse to see.

“Piece of cake,” she said proudly.

The cowboy whistled softly. “All that for that little thing? Must be important.”

“It’ll help me more than you probably realize. We could even find Echo by morning with this speeding up the process.”

McCree hummed softly and tipped his hat. “Well then, I’m glad I could help. We make quite the team, you know.”

Sombra rolled her eyes and pocketed the card for safekeeping, the ache of loneliness still very much present in her chest. “Duh. I’m the best teammate anyone could ask for.”

“Then why don’t you go back to that girl?”

It was an honest question, sure, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. “I don’t want to drag her into all this-” Sombra gestured with a sigh, “this danger. My messes. She’s better off without me and I’ll get over it.”

“Hm.”

The hacker narrowed her eyes. “Don’t give me that. Would you choose a life like mine if there was something better?”

The elevator stopped with a pleasant ding and the doors slid open. “I wouldn’t know,” McCree replied, stepping out and walking down the hall towards their room. “I’m not really the one that you want to answer that.”

Sombra grumbled softly and followed after him. She knew she was right, didn’t matter if he didn’t agree with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen, i was almost an engineer. i know what tech parts are in theory but not how they work together in practice, so take the logics of sombra's tech with a grain of salt


	26. 03/??/2078 XX:XX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we’re getting close yall. again, ashe and echos physical descriptions dont match canon at all and im not sorry

Sombra was right about the graphics card helping out a ton. It increased her hacking speed exponentially, and she tracked Echo’s location down to the place and time it was best to retrieve it.

There was just one thing standing in their way, apparently.

Well, one thing, and her giant robot butler.

“So this lady’s tough business?” Sombra asked, her mouth full of pie.

“I haven’t been on good terms with Ashe in maybe twenty years,” McCree replied, taking a long sip of hot coffee from where he sat across from her. The diner was deserted save for the two of them and a quiet melody playing on the little jukebox in the corner. “But I can guarantee she’s even deadlier than the last day I saw her. She founded Deadlock not out of necessity, but to stir up a little trouble.”

“She sounds like a bitch,” Sombra replied. She stirred sugar into her own coffee before taking a sip.

“She is.” McCree looked out the window. “She was like an older sister to me at one point, taught me everything I knew when it came to the gang. She and that omnic of hers were like an undefeatable pillar, and nothing could knock em down. And that went to her head.”

“You’re sure you can take her down on your own?”

“Listen, if we do this, it’s much better if they believe I’m alone. You’ve been enough help, just get what you need and protect that cargo till I can secure it. Sides,” Jesse grinned, one of his eyes glinting in the sunlight streaming through the window. “I grew up. I’m betting she didn’t.”

A train whistle sounded in the distance and both of them looked up at the clock. 11:55 AM.

Sombra drained her coffee and took one last bite of pie. It was damn good and she knew she wouldn’t be coming back here. “Showtime?”

McCree nodded, and they watched out the window as a train approached on the tracks leading from beyond the gorge. As the train passed over head, an explosion followed by a loud crash sounded outside. McCree placed a gold coin on the table for their meal before setting his hat on his head and walking outside, and Sombra cloaked herself and followed him out into the dust.

* * *

Sombra didn’t really find the woman calling shots in the gorge very intimidating. She was easily in her fifties, her short hair white and gray, her skin wrinkled by sun and time. She was petite in size and directing Deadlock members left and right to loot from the train wreckage. Really, the only big things about her were the heavy shotgun she had slung over her shoulders and the tall omnic butler at her side.

And that shrill, commanding voice. Yeesh. Gang life couldn’t get rid of that rich girl intonation if it tried.

Sombra climbed on top of a crate to set down a translocator and get a view of the area. From the position, she could see one glaring problem with their plan: the pristine white Echo cargo was already secured snug on the payload Ashe was standing on. And as she watched Jesse emerge from the dust and the two of them stand off, Sombra could see that they would have to go off script.

She was fine with that.

The scene went tense. No one moved a muscle. And then the clock struck noon and everything kicked into high gear.

Sombra trusted that Jesse could fend for himself in the middle of the action as she jumped into the fray and picked off a few stray Deadlock members from the outskirts of the fight. She nabbed a gun from one of them, and while a six-shooter wasn’t her strong suit it would have to do. Most of these guys were idiots anyway, and made for easy target practice.

As she thinned out the outer crowd, Sombra saw the telltale light of a red sniper rifle trail up her form and she locked eyes with an omnic sniper posed from above her. Before they could react, she translocated to behind them with an “Hola,” and a bullet to the back of the head.

With her aerial position secured, Sombra looked to the scene. They’d picked off a lot of Deadlock members, but so many still remained. McCree darted behind a boulder to take cover, and Sombra noticed their opportunity: a belt of grenades not 50 feet away from McCree. She shot the pavement near the belt to get McCree’s attention, and he nodded.

With a good throw and a couple of well-placed bullets, it was all over.

After the payload sent Ashe kicking and screaming down the road, Sombra sat atop the Echo crate and uncloaked herself. “She really didn’t grow up,” she said with a whistle.

Jesse dusted himself off as he approached the crate. “I appreciate the help. You didn’t have to stay.”

“Wasn’t a problem,” the hacker replied. “Plus, I wanna see what’s in this.”

“Then step aside.” The cowboy took a white key out of his pocket and pressed it into a slot in the crate. Immediately it hissed and let out a cool fog that made goosebumps rise on Sombra’s forearms. The components of the crate began to glow blue, and assembled themselves into a floating ovoid. From that shape, two slender cones formed at its sides for arms and another two at its base for legs, and finally a sphere detached from the top, emitting a soft blue halo and unsheathing a single large lens for a face. The lens blinked a few times before focusing on McCree. 

“Hey there, cowboy,” the omnic greeted in a warm, metallic voice.

Sombra blinked as the two had a conversation. Seeing Echo in person was definitely something she was going to save for her personal archive of information.

Before she knew it, Jesse was tipping his hat at the two of them and climbing onto Ashe’s hoverbike. “And say hi to the monkey for me.”

“Monkey?” the omnic asked.

Sombra barked out a laugh. “He’s a scientist.”

McCree laughed too and with a nod, drove off down the street and left a cloud of dust in his wake.

“You’re not going with him?” Echo asked, turning to Sombra.

“Nah. My work here is done.” Sombra turned and looked through one of the abandoned train crates. Most of the loot here was guns and ammo, and ah- there. Machine pistol ammo.

“Would you like to come with me to Gibraltar?”

Sombra paused at that question before digging through the crate again. “I mean, it’s probably better if I don’t. I’m not Overwatch, and I have a feeling your arrival is gonna be a big deal. Wouldn’t wanna ruin it for you.”

The omnic let out an awkward laugh. “I… see. If you change your mind, I’m sure you know where it is.”

“Yeah, yeah.” A ringing sound came from behind her and Sombra looked back at Echo, only to realize that it was gone. “Teleport… probably should have studied its technique.”

In another crate, Sombra’s eyes sparkled with the discovery of more computer parts. A lot of them were damaged, but between salvaging what she could from the crate and the wreckage of one of the train cars, Sombra was confident she had all the parts she needed to operate in full.

But… that arose the real question. Where  _could_ she go? Returning to Talon was a death wish, same with her safe house in Castillo. There was that one place, but… was it too risky? Theoretically, no one would know. It wasn’t summertime yet, after all, so Amelie wouldn’t be using the property. If Sombra went to Chateau Guillard, she’d be hiding under Talon’s nose and they would be none the wiser.

With a few tinkers and adjusting the settings on her gloves, Sombra set her translocation destination for France.

She wouldn’t stay there for long, anyway.


End file.
